Arts & Entertainment

Unfurling the Quilt

D.C. residents have multiple opportunities to see AIDS memorial in coming weeks

Published

14 years ago

June 21, 2012

Will Owen

The AIDS Quilt during a previous display in Washington. (Blade file photo)

The 1 million annual visitors to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival have rarely expected to engage in an international discourse about AIDS at the event in the past. This year, however, attendees can tell their own stories regarding HIV/AIDS through a variety of creative outlets and add to the already massive AIDS Memorial Quilt that will blanket part of the National Mall.

For the first time in the festival’s history, the Smithsonian Center of Folklife and Cultural Heritage is collaborating with the NAMES Project Foundation with the program “Creativity and Crisis: Unfolding the AIDS Memorial Quilt.”

The NAMES Project Foundation, established in 1987, is the Atlanta-based international organization that houses and maintains the AIDS Memorial Quilt. About 8,000 of the quilt’s 48,000 panels will be featured at the Folklife Festival to commemorate the quilt’s 25th anniversary and educate visitors about how art has been utilized to address an international epidemic.

“It’s a lovely collaborative effort between the Smithsonian Center of Folklife and Cultural Heritage, who are the presenters along with us,” Julie Rhoad, executive director of the NAMES Project, says. “It’s been a delight working with the curatorial team at the Smithsonian.”

The festival starts Wednesday and will continue through July 1, and will be held again from July 4-8 on the National Mall between 7th and 14th streets. Admission to all events is free. Festival hours are from 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m. each day and special events such as concerts and dance parties begin at 6 p.m.

“Creativity and Crisis: Unfolding the AIDS Memorial Quilt” will include a multitude of craft demonstrations, dance and musical performances, theater, children’s activity areas and interactive discussions that will complement the presence of the quilt at the festival. Many of the featured performances will be by artists who have been affected by HIV and AIDS. Visitors will have the opportunity to help make panels that will be incorporated into the quilt, and to tell their own stories.

“We receive a new panel on the average every day, every year. Right now we have I think several hundred that are already in our possession that during the Folklife Festival we will have Gert, who’s been with us 25 years, bundle and sew them on the National Mall,” Rhoad says. “There’s a whole host of creativity and expression around HIV and AIDS and the domestic and global efforts in expression, all centered and viewed through the lens of what the quilt has done.”

In the event of a rain, the NAMES Project has an expertly organized plan called the “rain fold” to protect the quilt.

“Each time we’ve been in D.C. we’ve had to deploy the plan. Amazingly, what happens is we have plastic and we have a way it gets folded up, then we take it under tents,” Rhoad says. “It’s an amazing thing to see. It’s what happens when you’re in the presence of the quilt.”

In addition to their display at the Folklife Festival, many of the quilt’s 48,000 panels will be on the National Mall again from July 21-25 during the start of the International AIDS Conference. About 40 locations throughout the Washington metropolitan area will also display portions of the quilt through July 27. Visit quilt2012.org for more details on when and where the quilt will be displayed in the area.

“It’s important to work as hard as we can to get to D.C. and to make this display a reality. It certainly gets people talking. It certainly calls on society to really think about our humanity and to really think about our connection to one another,” Rhoad says. “What a gift to be on the Smithsonian stage.”

The NAMES Project staff deeply appreciates support from festival visitors for their cause.

“Support comes in many ways — time, talent, treasure. Each is valued by us,” Rhoad says. “It takes a great deal of support to move the quilt to D.C. It takes even more to get it ready for its next adventure.”

The Smithsonian and NAMES Project have collaborated with one another exceptionally well, revealing the power of cooperation in addressing a vital cause.

“The quilt is the ultimate in folk art. It is done by everybody. These are not professional quilters for the most part,” Arlene Reiniger, the Smithsonian’s curator for “Creativity and Crisis: Unfolding the AIDS Memorial Quilt,” says. “It’s been wonderful working with the NAMES Project Foundation. They are the ones with the knowledge behind the quilt, the knowledge and resources. What we do is work with them to translate all of this information into a festival program.”

For more information on “Creativity and Crisis: Unfolding the AIDS Memorial Quilt,” visit festival.si.edu.

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Books

New book reveals what we can learn from animal sex

‘Poking the Squid’ on homosexuality, gender swapping, and more

Published

13 hours ago

July 13, 2026

Terri Schlichenmeyer

(Book cover image courtesy W.W. Norton)

‘Poking the Squid: What We Can Learn from Animal Sex’
By Perrin Roosevelt Ireland
c.2026, W.W. Norton
$29.99 241 pages

Birds do it.

According to Cole Porter, bees do, too, but it’s not exactly what he imagined. Wild and tame, avians, insects, and mammals all have sex – although not always as you’ve been told or for reasons you might think. Even educated fleas do it and, as in the new book, “Poking the Squid” by Perrin Roosevelt Ireland, humans can learn from them all.

If you read through scientific papers on animal reproduction, you might notice something unusual: for scientists, the word “sex” means a lot of different things.

Says Ireland, “It’s used to describe behaviors, biology, life histories, and more.”

That might be because animals are not simply binary.

Take, for instance, hyenas. It’s easy for the casual observer to mistake a male hyena for a female and vice versa because of stereotypes of anatomy. Mating, for hyenas, requires subordination for the male and a nifty trick on the part of the female’s body to get things done.

Our feathered friends are no birdbrains, either: black-browed albatrosses were once thought to be monogamous but global warming seems to have changed their nesting habits sometimes. Male flamingos have sex with one another, as a territorial thing; other birds and animals form same-sex pairs for other reasons.

The Chinese mantis eats her mate after fertilization. Female snakes, alpacas, guinea pigs, and monkeys are anatomically able to enjoy sex. Genitalia between species varies quite a bit; in fact, the vaginas of ducks “are highly complex.” Lionesses will mate up to 100 times when in heat. Female damselflies will change into a “third sex” to avoid overly aggressive mating males. Bearded dragons can change their sex, if needed, as can yellow clown goby fish. And seahorse pregnancy and birth sparked a book banning in Tennessee.

So, asks Ireland, if animals, including us, vary so much in biology and life, “… why are we using the word sex like it means something, anything, consistent?!”

Pick up “Poking the Squid,” page through it a few seconds, and you’ll see that the information here is largely told through cartoon-like drawings mixed with captions. It seems to be something on the lighter side, but don’t let that artwork fool you.

Author Perrin Roosevelt Ireland offers readers solid information that cozies up to the scholarly, with hard science, philosophy, feminism, and quotations from researchers to support it, thus furthering the narrative and hitting the points squarely. If you see the art and expect something lighthearted, comic, and small-talk-worthy, you could be disappointed.

On the other hand, if you want solid, wryly serious facts, you’re in for a treat.

There’s lots of learning to be gleaned here, and some slight nudge-wink whimsy to emphasize the absurdity of wrong-headed thinking. This can make readers feel like they’re in-the-know on the jokes, and the playfulness balances the seriousness of the information well.

So, serious, scholarly, or slightly silly, none of these are negative but you’re going to know what you want from a book like this. For the right reader, someone in the mood, “Poking the Squid” is wild.

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