What's on in the hall?
HIV Unwrapped
Monday 15 - Thursday 18 September
Exhibition Hall
HIV Unwrapped helps explore the intersection between HIV science and innovation and visual artistry; creating new creative responses to HIV whilst paying tribute to how artistic expression has helped shape the medical, cultural and political response to HIV.
Using the lab coat as a premise, the project draws inspiration from the question – what would you wear as a HIV scientist/researcher which amplifies yourself and your work in HIV?
Over the past few months, HIV scientists from around the world have been working with fashion students in Rwanda, the UK and in Australia. This exhibition brings together 15 unique garments seek to reimagine, redesign and redefine the traditional lab coat informed by, and reflecting, the scientists work within their respective field of HIV.
We are delighted to have five new Australian garments in this exhibition which reflect the exceptional HIV science being done in Western Australia as well as an opportunity to showcase the work of this year’s co-chairs of the Australasian HIV and AIDs conference 2025.
We encouraged the designers to interrupt and explore notions of HIV science within their artistic language, approach, point of view and aesthetic. These 22 garments bring together science and fashion to help illustrate how these fields can connect and work together to explain science, exemplify innovation and contribute to artistic activism.
The Quilt Project
Monday 15 - Thursday 18 September
Exhibition Hall
In the USA in 1987 at the height of the AIDS epidemic, activists Cleve Jones and Mike Smith, with support from Jack Caster, Ron Cordova, Joseph Durant, Steve Kirchner, Larkin Mayo, Gert McMullin, and Gary Yuschalk founded the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt to memorialise friends, family and loved ones who had died of AIDS related illness. This distinctive memorial is today the largest piece of community folk art in the world.
The Australian AIDS Memorial Quilt Project emerged in 1988, when Andrew Carter visited the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt in Atlanta. Motivated by his experience of the quilt, Carter visited the NAMES Project headquarters in San Francisco to gather more information, and on returning to Australia, he connected with friends including Ken Bryan, Terry Culver, Terry Giblett, Lorraine Hepburn, Tony Kay, and Richard Johnson to create the first quilt panels and establish a similar project in Australia. The project set out with three objectives:
To provide a positive and creative means of expression for those whose lives have been touched by the epidemic
To illustrate the impact of the AIDS epidemic by showing the humanity behind the statistics
To encourage support for people with AIDS and their loved ones
Ita Buttrose launched The Quilt Project on World AIDS Day, 1 December 1988 at the Sydney Dance Company’s studios. At that event, four quilts remembering family, friends, and lovers were displayed. The quilt grew substantially, and today over 120 quilts remember over 2,500 individuals.
Today, the historic and cultural importance of The Quilt Project means many blocks are in the custodianship of museums such as the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences, Sydney and the Western Australian Museum, Perth, or have been heritage listed as with the Victorian AIDS Memorial Quilt.
Key Deadlines:
Abstract Open: January 2025
Abstract Deadline: 4 May 2025
Early Bird Registration: 30 June 2025
Accommodation Deadline: 2 August 2025
Standard Registration: 31 August 2025
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We acknowledge that the conference is being held the traditional lands of the Kaurna people. We recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' continuing connection to land, water, and community and we pay our respects to Elders past and present. ASHM acknowledges Sovereignty in this country has never been ceded. It always was, and always will be, Aboriginal land.