Public Artwork
Aids Memorial
Artwork creator(s):
Wilson, Bruce
Text author(s):
Santayana, George
Installation year:
2004 Description:
Curved wall, like a ribbon. On it, the names of thousands of BC AIDS victims have been cut out in the steel. A poem is written above.
Text of the artwork:
With you a part of me hath passed away
For in the peopled forest of my mind
A tree made leafless by this wintry wind
Shall never don again its green array.
Chapel and fireside, country road and bay,
Have something of their friendliness resigned;
Another, if I would, I could not find,
And I am grown much older in a day.
But yet I treasure in my memory
Your gift of charity, your mellow ease,
And the dear honour of your amity;
For these once mine, my life is rich with these.
And I scarce know which part may greater be,--
What I keep of you, or you rob of me.
“But the energy that is me will not be lost” Dr Peter
Name of AIDS victim
Text theme:
Presence or absence, as felt by those who have lost loved ones
Artwork theme:
Aids
Note(s):
The names have been placed randomly on the Memorial, representing the random nature of the impact of HIV/AIDS.
The poem's title, W.P., refers to Warwick Potter, a friend who died in an 1893 boating accident.
Artist's biography:
Bruce Wilson
Author's biography:
George Santayana Document(s):
Syndicate
