Folklife Festival 2012: "Creativity And Crisis: Understanding The AIDS Memorial Quilt"

The history of the AIDS Memorial Quilt and a piece of U.S. real estate called "The Mall" is a very important and unique one. The Quilt has been displayed in its entirety only five times -- in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1992 and 1996 -- and each time it was on The Mall.

I have to admit that of all of the themes this year, this one seemed the strangest to me. After having visited it today, it still does.

To expand the idea, the names of those with quilt panels were printed on canvas and used to adorn the low fence that separate portions of the presentations.

This display gave detailed looks into the lives of some of the people from other places who had died of AIDS.

In one area a set of tricorn placards with the history of the quilt narrated on them attracked visitors like these professional folk on their lunch break.

A main tent was set up for displaying further information on the parent organization. The tent in the back ground was decked out for a quilting bee that had yet to get fully organized. There were also smaller tents and canopies where names would be read out and memories of those with panels would be shared.

And then there were the panels themselves.

I actually had the privilege of seeing the quilt in 1996. It ran the full length of The Mall from the edge of the capitol to the shadow of the Washington Monument. It was impossible to apprehend, and all I wanted to do was walk and cry. So visceral was the feeling, that even the act of breathing became intentional.

Today the experience was very different. First, the amount of panels was so much less, and I know it still looks impressive--but having been to a mountain, a walk on a hill just isn't the same. Second, in 1996 the graves were still warm. I was hard pressed to find a panel today that had a death date later than 1995 on it. What had seemed like a holocaust, now felt like history. My emotions still welled up within, but not with the same stark and hopeless intensity as had been the case just 16 years ago.

Respectfully, I commend to you just a few of the panels that caught my attention.