The title of this recording is "Cleve Jones - NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt". It is described as: Cleve Jones, founder of the NAMES Project, talks to Ian Kember in 1991 about the quilt. It was recorded in San Francisco, United States of America on the 26th June 1991. Cleve Jones is being interviewed by Ian Kember.  Their names are spelt correctly but may appear incorrectly spelt later in the document. The duration of the recording is 10 minutes. A list of correctly spelt content keywords and tags can be found at the end of this document. A brief description of the recording is: Cleve Jones, founder of the NAMES Project, talks to Ian Kember about the AIDS Memorial Quilt. The quilt was first unfolded on 11 October 1987 in Washington DC. The content in the recording covers the decades 1980s through to the 1990s. A brief summary of the recording is: This summary concerns an interview with Cleve Jones, the founder of the NAMES Project, who elaborated on the significance and influence of the AIDS Memorial Quilt. Recorded on June 26, 1991, in San Francisco by Ian Kember, the discussion centers around the quilt as a symbol of awareness, mourning, and activism during the 1980s and 1990s concerning the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The quilt emerged as a unique and potent symbol, successfully communicating the enormity of the AIDS crisis beyond San Francisco, where the impact was profoundly felt. The interview explores how quilts have historically represented social causes, though Jones credits other inspirations, such as the Vietnam War Memorial and Judy Chicago's "The Dinner Party," for the collaborative aspect of the quilt. The evocation of traditional American values through the quilt is mentioned to have been a strategic choice for its emotional cultural resonance. When asked about funding, Jones defers, citing the organization's grassroots nature with revenue predominantly sourced from the sales of merchandise. The widespread impact of the NAMES Project across the United States is highlighted, especially in rural communities where the quilt serves as a vital educational tool and fundraising focus. Jones further comments on the quilt's role in enhancing gay and lesbian visibility while maintaining that the project is not strictly a gay organization but a confluence of individuals united by a common cause. The significance of the quilt lies in its ability to subliminally educate people about the gay and lesbian community through its message of love and solidarity. A particularly touching aspect of the quilt is its role in uniting friends and families of those who passed away and providing a shared space for mourning and remembrance. Jones reflects on how multiple panels often represent a single individual, providing an avenue for different groups to connect – gay friends might create a panel and later, the deceased's family might contribute another, thereby forging bonds and shared understanding. While overseas engagement with the quilt is growing, with countries like New Zealand participating actively, Jones remarks on the challenges faced by the NAMES Project, including securing celebrity narrators for related documentaries. Practical elements such as storage and transportation of the quilt are managed well, with losses and vandalism incidents being minimal. The interview closes with a candid reflection from Jones on the quilt's impact. Pride in the vast reach of the project is tempered by disappointment in the U. S. government's lackluster response to the AIDS crisis. Despite the quilt's powerful expression, it has not spurred the anticipated governmental action. The full transcription of the recording begins:  Why do you think that quilt was such a successful magnet and attracting so much support and attention? Well, I think almost everybody who had been involved with the epidemic was feeling a deep sense of frustration at our inability to communicate to the rest of the world. What was going on here, particularly here in San Francisco, where so many people were affected so early on. And it was a terribly frustrating, isolating sort of experience. And I think that the quilt was the first thing that came along that people really saw could communicate what we were experiencing beyond all of the boundaries of sexual orientation or geography. To your knowledge, is a quilt or a tapestry ever been used in this form before? Yes, there's a long tradition of quilting, uh, being used to express social causes. There was the piece quilt. Um, I didn't really get my inspiration from that, though. I think my inspiration comes more from, uh, the Vietnam War Memorial and also Judy Chicago's Dinner party, which was an art piece where feminist artists contributed portions of it, and I like the the collaborative nature of it. But quilting has been used for a very long time to express social causes. And really, what we're trying to do with the quilt is to recapture the so called traditional American values, uh, for this particular situation. And I think that the quilt evokes a very traditional American, uh, cultural response. How's the project now funded? I don't know. You'll have to talk to the people that run it now, Um, of a very high percentage of our income still comes from the sale of T shirts and buttons, video tapes, things like that. We remain a grassroots organisation. Uh, for almost all of our funding, what's the basis for the orderly running of such a large project? Now? I don't know. OK, we'll move on then, then the names project seems to be active in about 24 or five states in the United States. What's happening in the rest of the states? The names project is is, uh, active everywhere and has had an impact everywhere. Um, I think we've been particularly effective in in reaching people outside of the urban centres. I've I've done a lot of travelling to smaller towns and rural communities, and I just, for example, got back from a trip to northern New Hampshire. And, uh, later in the summer, I'm going to be coordinating a quilt display in Northern Michigan. And in communities like that, the quilt is always the the largest, uh, undertaking they've ever attempted in in terms of fund raising public education. Everywhere the quilt goes, it is displayed as the centrepiece for locally coordinated fundraising and educational activities. How the quilt helped made gay and lesbian visibility Well, there are some who would say that the quilt is too passive, and we have been very clear from the beginning that we, as an organisation, do not have a specific political agenda. And from the very beginning we have been made up of heterosexuals, homosexuals and bisexuals, all working together. So we are not a gay organisation, per se. But I feel that anyone who walks through the quilt receive such a powerful message about the love and the solidarity of the gay and lesbian community. And I think that in this respect, the quilt is really actually quite subversive because on the surface level we're very respectable. We go into high schools and junior high schools. We're supported by establishment institutions. But when people come to see this AIDS education message. They also learn a lot about about the gay and lesbian community. And I think one would have to be made of stone not to be moved by the love that is represented in the quilt the quilt has indeed, I know in many places brought together people in terms of, uh, the activities involved with them in terms of, uh, the sewing and the meeting of people and partners. And can you express any, uh, experiences you've had where people have been joined? The community has been strengthened by the group? Well, I think one of the most, uh, wonderful things that happens is that, you know, there are many people represented in the quote with more than one panel. Usually what happens is when, particularly if they're gay people, a gay man will die of AIDS and his gay family, his lover and his friends will make a panel first. And then, typically a year later, the mom and dad and the brothers and sisters will come around, and then they will make a panel, and one of the things that we try to do is introduce these people to each other so that they can share their different experiences of this person and their love for this person. I think that's very important for gay and lesbian people who still today feel so terribly isolated by this disease. It's very hard for those of us who are gay to keep sight of the fact that there are literally millions of people now all over the world who are also part of this struggle and they're not gay and they're not American. But they're part of us. And I think that the quilt expresses that beautifully, especially now that we're getting more participation from around the world. Um, and the quilt projects that we've seen started in on other continents. Many people in Wellington, the city of New Zealand, I come from met the people who made the the the film the common threats film when they came to New Zealand. And, uh, the question back in my mind is, how easy has it been for people in the organisation to get hold of people like Dustin Homan, Robert Wagner to narrate and and front up those sorts of projects? I would say that nothing we have done here has been easy, ever. And, uh, all of the people who work here work very hard at very low pay. We have received support from remarkable places and remarkable people, but nothing about it has been easy. Just a technical question now. And that is how do you arrange the orderly storage and transportation of such a monstrous art? Well, I think the uh, executive director could give you a better handle of that, but basically the quilt is modular. The individual panels are sewn eight at a time into 12 ft by 12 ft squares. So it's very. It's relatively easy for us to do to stored. It folds up, and it's transported by people who are trained to coordinate the displays. We have a growing network of volunteers around the country who know how to display it and take care of it. And really, we've had virtually no problems on that score, which still kind of amazes me. There were two individual panels that were lost early on in in the in the project, and I don't think we've lost any since then, and we've only had one, very minor, uh, experience with vandalism. So it's really perhaps give some advice to the United States Special Service with that experience. Well, I think we could give a lot more advice, but I'd rather give it to some different government agencies. What message would you give to countries like to give to countries affected by AIDS, but yet to embark on the AIDS? Um project? What advice? Yes. What? What encouragement would you give them to? Well, I think that it it really depends on their country. We don't maintain that the quilt is the answer to every culture. Uh, the quilt works particularly well in countries that have a tradition of quilting in America. We tend to think of that as a as a particularly American art form. In fact, it's not. And there are traditions of quilting that go back for centuries in Africa, for example. But the the the central notion of using artistic expression to help people resolve their grief and to connect them to the larger experience, I think is valid for any culture, any setting, any political system. Obviously, they've got to find out what works for their own particular situation. We have found, though, with our international department Jeanette and Marcus Wagler that in most of the countries that they've gone to, they've ended up adopting something very similar to what we do. How do you feel as as the person that started this project as the person that first spray paint this friend's name onto piece? How how do you feel now? I have mixed feelings about the quilt. I'm very proud of it. It's I wake up every day, still, four years later, with a sense of astonishment and wonder that an idea that started in my backyard has now involved so many millions of people and really touched millions of people. And that's very gratifying. And on the other hand, uh, I would have to say that the quilt has failed in what I had thought it would do. And looking back now, it seems very naive. But I believed on October 11th, 1987 when we unfolded the quilt on the Capitol Mall for the first time in Washington, DC, I believed that the leaders of our country would see it would understand and would be moved and compelled to respond, and clearly that has not happened. So it's very frustrating as we enter the second decade of the HIV pandemic to recognise that the fundamental issues of the epidemic still have not been addressed by the federal government. So I I'm proud of what we've done. The quilt works. The quilt helps people. It connects them, has it yet, or has anything yet been sufficient to move President Bush and the leaders of Congress? No. The full transcription of the recording ends. A list of keywords/tags describing the recording follow. These tags contain the correct spellings of names and places which may have been incorrectly spelt earlier in the document. The tags are seperated by a semi-colon: 1980s ; 1990s ; AIDS Memorial Quilt ; Africa ; Cleve Jones ; Gay BC (Wellington Access Radio) ; HIV / AIDS ; Ian Kember ; Judy Chicago ; NAMES Project ; New Zealand AIDS Memorial Quilt ; People ; San Francisco ; United States of America ; Vietnam ; Vietnam War ; activities ; advice ; agenda ; boundaries ; capital ; community ; connect ; culture ; education ; epidemic ; expression ; family ; feelings ; film ; friends ; frustration ; funding ; fundraising ; gay ; government ; grief ; individual ; inspiration ; knowledge ; lesbian ; love ; lover ; memorial ; nature ; other ; pandemic ; passive ; prejudice ; quilt ; respect ; running ; rural ; sexual orientation ; social ; solidarity ; struggle ; support ; time ; tradition ; urban ; values ; visibility ; work. The original recording can be heard at this website https://www.pridenz.com/aids_memorial_quilt_cleve_jones.html. The master recording is also archived at the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington, New Zealand.  For more details visit their website https://tiaki.natlib.govt.nz/#details=ecatalogue.1089246. Please note that this document may contain errors or omissions - you should always refer back to the original recording to confirm content.