Reception and Film Screening for Threads of Life, Love, & Loss: An HIV/AIDS Story

Thursday, October 13, 2022

 The reception for the exhibition “Threads of Life, Love, & Loss: An HIV/AIDS Story,” begins at 5pm in the Human Ecology Building’s Commons where two panels of the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt are hanging.

 The premiere of “Echoes of Enduring Love,” a film by Prof. Denise Green related to the exhibit, will start at 5:45 in Martha Van Rensselaer Hall, Room G155.

“Threads of Life, Love, & Loss: An HIV/AIDS Story” is a collaboration between the Cornell Fashion + Textile Collection and the Human Sexuality Collection that is part of the Cornell University Library’s “Threads of History: Textiles at Cornell” exhibitions and the 2022 Cornell Council for the Arts Biennial. This fashion exhibit, along with accompanying documentary film, both explore how dress, textiles, and archives can be activated in the struggle for health equity amidst on ongoing global health crisis that has lasted more than 40 years and robbed families, friends, and communities of upwards of 40 million lives. We focus on one story of many affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, Mark Goldstaub (1951 – 1988), his partner Edmund Wojcik (1955 – 1995) and the many lives they touched, to show how cloth and creative expression have the transformative potential to raise awareness, record histories, memorialize, destigmatize, and make positive change in the world.  Garments, quilts, accessories, historical documents, photographs, music composed by Paul Goldstaub and Laurie Conrad, and documentary films by Denise N. Green are included in the display. 

Made possible with support of the Cornell Council for the Arts, Laurie Conrad Music and Arts Fund of Community Foundation of Tompkins County, Cornell University Library, College of Human Ecology, and the Cornell Fashion + Textile Collection in the Department of Human Centered Design.