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A living artwork made from thousands of selfies — from those living with HIV and their allies. Stitched together into something extraordinary.
Over two years, Positive East collected thousands of photographs submitted from around the world—from London to Sydney, Gaborone to Sacramento—to celebrate the U=U message.
The photographs are printed on fabric and arranged to form the powerful statement: U=U.
The project draws upon a visual medium and language that has deep roots within the HIV Community – quilting. Across nine community stitching sessions, 174 contributors dedicated more than 1,500 hours of stitching to transform 4,000 photographs into three expansive 6’ × 6’ quilt panels. Each individual stitch reflects the diversity and resilience of our global community. Each individual image amplifies this message thousands of times,
creating a collective statement that fully reveals itself only when every individual contribution is viewed together. A single blue square represents all those who are no longer with us.
The U=U Community Quilt has been crafted with the same love and care as the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt. It allows us to re-imagine the AIDS Quilt in the historic era of U=U, while contributing to a growing and diverse archive of visual and artistic responses to HIV. We hope the U=U Community Quilt stands as a powerful reminder of the strength of our united voice.
The project is intended to be unfinished, transforming and evolving with each new stitch added and photograph added.
Click HERE to add your photo
Click on the quilt to zoom in and explore the faces that made up this project.
Join us as we launch the U=U Community Quilt. All welcome!
The U=U community quilt will be on full display during the annual BHIVA conference in Liverpool.
A time for London to remember the many lives lost to HIV and AIDS.
The U=U Community Quilt will be proudly displayed within the event’s village
The U=U community quilt will be forming a core part of the 2026 event.
We live in an era of tangible progress in the history of HIV, with medicine and scientific advancements evolving rapidly. The shadow that HIV once cast across our communities is now starting to fall behind us.
U=U is central to this, meaning that if you are adhering to your HIV medicine and have an undetectable viral load, it is biologically impossible to pass the virus on sexually.
This crucial message helps us to break the cycle of HIV stigma, as well as being central to our ambition to eliminate new HIV transmissions by 2030.
We were delighted to work with film-maker Daniel Morten to create a short documentary that follows the project from start to end.
More information coming summer 2026!
Today we support the launch of the FIVE BASICS campaign!
Learn more HERE