Arrivals + Departures Wednesday 5 May 2021 Artists Yara and Davina create ambitious public artworks that respond to site, context and audience. Their inventive, issue-based work is wide ranging, and uses a lightness of touch that make their works both poetic and universal. Arrivals + Departures invites the public to share the names of those who have arrived and departed on live boards, to acknowledge, celebrate and commemorate. On Wednesday 5 May 2021 Yara and Davina invited me to ‘takeover’ the boards of their Brighton International Festival exhibit in Pavilion Gardens to commemorate the lives of those who died from an AIDS-related illness in Brighton & Hove. It was an honour & a pleasure to be invited to be a part of this wonderful public artwork exploring birth, death, and the journey in between. ‘In the roaring waters, I hear the voices of dead friends Love is life that lasts forever My hearts memory turns to you...’    Andrea Philippe Regard   Arrival - 16 March 1965 / Departure - 13 May 1991   Graham Charles Wilkinson   Arrival - 08 December 1949 / Died 22 August 1990 (London Lighthouse)   David Andrew Jones ‘Cooch’   Arrival - 17 July 1962 / Departure - 18 October 1999   Gary Beverly   Arrival - 26 September 1956 / Departure - 23 June 1993   Father Marcus Riggs   Arrival -1955 / Departure - 10 July 1998   Clive Bentley   Arrival - 07 August 1961 / Departure - 17 August 1994   Kevin John Dodd   Arrival - 21 May 1962 / Departure - February 1992 The quoted text comes from the film ‘Blue’ by Derek Jarman.

Reflections of an Unsung Hero Reflections of an Unsung Hero was a solo performance created by Robert Pacitti, directed by Colin Schantz and commissioned by Aputheatre (AIDS Positive Underground Theatre Company) to cherish the work of Graham Wilkinson. Playwright John Roman Baker was so impressed by Robert’s performance of ‘Lust’ during his second year at Art School in 1990, that he approached him to create a performance to honour Graham, and gave him full copies of Graham’s diaries to work with. The commission asked for a radical live performance that responded to the content of the diaries, Graham’s Gay Liberation Front and extensive AIDS activism, and his significant lifetime legacy fighting for change. Because Graham had lost his sight, Robert wore an eye mask and travelled around Brighton on the bus to immerse himself in the role. The play was rehearsed at the Sussex AIDS Centre and Helpline in readiness for the 1991 Brighton Festival, but was nearly de-railed when Gavin Henderson, the Brighton Festival director, pulled the play from the programme due to its subject matter and the theatre company name. Lindsey Kemp was one of the festival headliners that year, and when news reached him that the play had been removed from the programme, Robert was asked to meet at his hotel. When Lindsey heard the full story, he gave Robert £500 in cash so that the play could go ahead, and had it reinstated in the festival programme. The play was performed at the Marlborough Theatre on the 26 May 1991.

The Brighton AIDS Memorial Exhibition was displayed at the Dorset Gardens Methodist Church and the Ledward Centre on Jubilee Street between the 24th November and the 4th December 2021 'Love is life that lasts forever'

To mark World AIDS Day 2023, the Brighton AIDS Memorial was proud to display two Brighton specific panels on loan from the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt collection. This was made possible with the generous support of the LGBTQ Workers Forum. The panels which were both sewn in 1991, had not been seen on display in the city for over 30 years.