One of my UG lecturers would walk up to particularly disruptive students, point the microphone at them and have them answer questions about course content. Most couldn’t formulate a coherent answer under the scrutiny of hundreds of peers. The prospect of embarrassment is a powerful corrective.
![Comic Page 3: Back at the sewing club, we see the instructor (older again) smiling with tears in his eyes as he looks at the jacket - confronted with both the bad and good memories it represents. The young man wearing the jacket notices a large tear in the shoulder seam.
Another older man wearing headphones sits across the room at a sewing machine, oblivious to the instructor and young man continuing to inspect the jacket behind him. We zoom into his face and notice a billboard on the opposite wall, which resolves into a closeup of a photo pinned to it - the young instructor at an AIDS protest surrounded by a diverse crowd.
TEXT:
It’s is also remembered as a time of…
[badges]: LOVE, COMMUNITY, SOLIDARITY
When the rest of the world turned away, the gay community turned to each other for support.
But there is a disconnect.
Young and older gay men have few spaces to come together and share their different experiences of HIV.
“There will always be that kind of gulf between the generations… lived experience that you can’t really relate to.” (Luke, 25yo, white, never tested)
“It just feels like very far away in the past.” (Sherif, 23yo, Asian, HIV neg)
“As a community, we've missed out on a whole generation of elders who had lives and were having fun, but then who weren't able to speak to us because they’re just not here anymore.” (Edward, 45yo, white, HIV neg)
Even within generations, there are also other gaps. How people experience HIV is shaped by race, migration, and inequality.
For some men in the UK, particularly from Black African communities, HIV comes with stigma, taboo, and isolation. A source of shame rather than solidarity.
“I don’t even trust my family and friends if I were to tell them [I lived with HIV]. The isolation comes from all perspectives, really. Friends will turn, families will turn stranger.” (Curtis, 30, Black African, HIV neg)
Without listening to and centering these experiences, our understanding of HIV is incomplete.
How we coll…](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:qi5vqvpv3oj3ycqac5ypxhw4/bafkreigv6625ds66mbz4zwhgpravzadvuuv3p7lfmbrrqbgdspxrkefqgu)
![Comic Page 4: A detailed panel of the noticeboard with the previous photo surrounded by various signage leftover from the COVID pandemic (e.g. social distancing, cancelled quilt making workshops). Below the noticeboard is a workstation with hand sanitiser and sewing machine stitching together a face mask, and materials for an NHS rainbow quilt patch. We next see "clap for the NHS" juxtaposed with a newspaper headline from 1985 "I'd shoot my son if he had AIDS, says vicar!" followed by an image of two men tenderly kissing in an AIDS ward hospital bed, juxtaposed with two men wearing facemasks hugging through a plastic sheet during COVID.
A montage of the instructor unpicking and reinforcing the stitching on the jacket, showing the young man how to make various repairs and make it his own, including a new Trans Rights badge. The two of them stand back to admire their finished creation.
The COVID Pandemic gave many younger gay men an unexpected point of reference for what the previous generation went through during the AIDS Crisis.
“It was so enlightening for showing the comparisons between HIV and COVID because we suddenly realised that this was a shared experience.” (Danny, 33yo, white, HIV neg on PrEP)
[posters etc]: HANDWASH STATION, SOCIAL DISTANCE 2M, “IT’S A SIN” WATCH PARTY, QUILT MAKING WORKSHOP CANCELLED, SANEX, MASK PATTERN
But in many ways the Pandemic threw into stark contrast the disparity in public sympathy between the gay community and wider society.
THANK YOU NHS
“I was conscious that the scale and the speed of responses to COVID…”
[newspaper:] I’D SHOOT MY SON IF HE HAD AIDS, SAYS VICAR!
“…was almost hurtfully ironic in contrast to the speed and responses to the HIV pandemic… made you realise the… the lack of care and empathy and attention paid during the time of HIV.” (Josh, 27yo, white, HIV neg on PrEP)
Similarly, for many who lived through the AIDS Crisis…
“[COVID] managed to resurrect those very dark moments in a very palpable way.” (Pa…](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:qi5vqvpv3oj3ycqac5ypxhw4/bafkreigyvsw2v2uvy7oqmbyf6thmcwkaroyz3bavo6zaq5pl42chiuxqoe)
![Comic Page 5: The young man stratches his chin - there's still something missing - then raises his finger in realisation as he turns toward the older man with headphones who is walking towards him with a badge. He places it on the jacket, covering the last remaining hole.
The young man approaches the same imposing hospital as before, which now has a nice new wing attached to it. This panel then cascades down into a quilt made of patches featuring the faces of different men, and ending in an overhead view of people viewing the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt laid out across a large field.
TEXT:
A virus may be biological, but it is also a social reality.
It affects – and is affected by - how people understand themselves, their relationships and communities.
HIV can help teach us how to deal with public health crises, because they highlight how pandemics deepen social inequalities.
Understanding what HIV means to each other is key to creating a future where HIV is not only treatable and preventable…
but also free from stigma. For everyone.
Despite these difference in experiences and memories between generations and groups, HIV can also bring continuity and connection between them.
“Next week I’m getting a PrEP appointment…”
“So… within the context of this virus…”
“…there is a lineage that connects me to the first queer people…”
“It’s present and it’s felt.” (Ben, 30yo, white, HIV neg)
[quilt]: FOR A FRIEND WITH LOVE
The UK AIDS Memorial Quilt is a historical collection of 42 large panels, each containing individual squares stitched by the loved ones of those who died from AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s. It commemorates 384 people, and was inspired by the US NAMES Project Quilt.
Special thanks to the comic funders, interview participants, and Rik Worth.
100% Human-Made](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:qi5vqvpv3oj3ycqac5ypxhw4/bafkreihynbiw6md6uldsaccaryhbktlhyl35mroxnue4ylfy3jjb3phiw4)
