Anya Gallaccio and Ryan Gander are among five artists shortlisted to create a permanent HIV/Aids memorial in London more than 40 years after the UK’s first Aids case was reported in The Lancet medical journal (June 1981).
The overdue memorial will be located close to the former Middlesex Hospital in Fitzrovia, where the UK’s first dedicated Aids unit was opened by Princess Diana in April 1987. The new public art piece will “acknowledge an increasingly forgotten period in British history and the lessons we learnt from that time,” says Aids Memory UK, the charity behind the planned memorial.
The artists Harold Offeh, Shahpour Pouyan and Diana Puntar are also on the shortlist; all have submitted initial proposals which are currently being worked up for submission. The winning work will be announced this summer with the work due to be unveiled in 2026, according to the BBC.
Panel judges include the writer Olivia Laing and the artist Rana Begum. Aids Memory UK will also deliver a programme of projects and events to explore why “London needs an Aids memorial”, adds the charity.
The new work will be partly funded by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who has pledged £130,000 funding from the Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm towards it.
“[The memorial] will spur us on to keep fighting to end deaths due to HIV disease and Aids defining illnesses and to stop new HIV infections worldwide. HIV/Aids has disproportionately affected four communities: gay/bisexual men, Black African communities, the bleeding disorders community and injecting drug users,” adds Aids Memory UK. According to the Terrence Higgins Trust, a leading sexual health charity, 106,890 people were living with HIV in the UK in 2019.
New York, meanwhile, has led the way in commemorating those who have been affected by HIV and Aids. Last June, the New York City Aids Memorial initiative unveiled a new, site-specific sculpture by Jim Hodges as part of its public art initiative and the city’s Art in the Parks programme. Opened in 2016 to honour the more than 100,000 New Yorkers who have died of Aids, the memorial has hosted nearly 20 installations and events by artists including Jean-Michel Othoniel and Jenny Holzer.
