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Considered one of the largest pieces of community-crafted folk art in the world, the 25-year-old NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt would cover 1.3 million square feet if rolled out today. With nearly 50,000 panels accumulated in its 25-year history, clocking in at around 54 tons, the quilt is now so massive that it can't even be viewed in a single piece.
In order to fit the display at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. the patchwork is split up into three sections. It will eventually run out of display space, as people continue to succumb to the disease and new panels are added.
To accommodate the continued growth of the quilt, Microsoft Research Connections has joined forces with the University of Southern California Annenberg Innovation Lab, Brown University, University of Iowa, National Endowment for the Humanities, NAMES Project Foundation, and others to create a digital exhibit that displays the quilt in its entirety online.
You can zoom in and view it block by block -- but with each of the 6,000 blocks holding eight panels, it'll take you well over a month to view the whole thing. The project also includes a 30-year interactive timeline on ChronoZoom documenting the history of AIDS, with the option to zoom in on the quilt at various stages of production.
All photos: Jake Knapp, courtesy of Microsoft
