Burchfield Penney Art Center Observes World AIDS Day

World AIDS Day, which has been celebrated nationwide since 1988, will be observed at the Burchfield Penney Art Center beginning at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, December 1, with a quilt display, an exhibition, a press conference, and a lecture.

More than 50 handmade quilts crafted as tributes to Western New Yorkers who have lost their lives to AIDS will greet visitors in a display in the art center’s main foyer. Each quilt in the “Mending of the Hearts Memorial Project,” represents a personal testimony.

An exhibit of the Madeline Davis Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender (GLBT) archives will accompany the quilts to demonstrate the effect of 30 years of AIDS on the Western New York community and especially its devastation to the arts community. Buffalo State now oversees Davis’ archives in the Archives and Special Collections area of E. H. Butler Library.

A press conference will begin at 11:00 a.m. At 7:00 p.m., Davis, founder of the Madeline Davis GLBT archives of Western New York, and Gerald Mead, lecturer of design and an independent curator, arts writers, and art collector, will present the lecture, “30 Years of AIDS...Where Have all the Artists Gone?” in the Peter and Elizabeth C. Tower Auditorium. Admission is free and open to the public.

The World Health Organization established World AIDS Day in 1988 as a way to provide governments, national AIDS programs, faith and community organizations, and individuals with an opportunity to raise awareness and focus attention on this local and global epidemic. An estimated 33 million people worldwide are living with HIV/AIDS, and as many as 5,000 people locally are currently living with the disease.