Spring 1997 Newsletter

AIDS Memorial Quilt to Come to Campus

by Sara Ferris '84

Panels from the NAMES Project Memorial AIDS quilt will visit Williams in the spring of 1998 in a showing organized by BiGALA and a number of other sponsors. Quilt panels will be opened and spread in the Chandler gymnasium for a weekend, then hung in the atrium of the art museum for the rest of the month. Event organizers will request the NAMES Project Foundation to display panels made in memory of Williams alumni and residents of Berkshire county.

The purpose of the showing is, first, to bring AIDS education to Williamstown, according to BiGALA co-chair Christopher Kerby '81. "It also, in a metaphorical way, brings back to Williamstown those who have died of AIDS," he notes. "The event is also a coming-out for BiGALA, a vehicle by which BiGALA makes is presence known to the broader community in a visible way."

Toward that end, alumni groups in New York and Boston will plan trips to Williamstown to view the quilt. BiGALA will cosponsor these treks with the larger Williams College Society of Alumni. From its beginnings in 1987, the AIDS quilt has grown to contain more than 45,000 3 ft. by 6 ft. panels, which are sewn into 12 ft. by 12 ft. blocks. Its Williams appearance will likely dovetail with campus Queer Pride Days, which encompass the whole month of April.

Along with the BiGALA executive committee, those currently working on the quilt showing include students Jennifer Cartee and Greg Bloch of the BGLU and Queer/Straight Alliance; Linda Shearer, Director of the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA); and Donna Denelli-Hess, Director of Health Services. Campus and community groups. So far more than twenty campus and community groups have signed on as sponsors, including the Chaplain's Office, Newman Society, college president Hank Payne, and Tripod, a Williamstown business.

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