On the National AIDS Trust’s World AIDS Day website, there’s an interview with Garry Jones, Saving Lives ambassador and lead designer of the Birmingham AIDS & HIV Memorial, which DSaving Lives sponsored and supported:
Garry Jones, 63, is an artist from Birmingham who has been living with HIV since 2006. A community activist for many years, Garry is the designer of The Ribbons, the HIV and AIDS memorial statue standing proudly in Birmingham’s city centre. The statue shows two red ribbons adapted into a heart shape – a symbol which Garry first used in 2008 as part of the city’s World AIDS Day tributes. The ribbons symbolise the lives we have lost to HIV and AIDS, while celebrating those able to live with HIV today.
The idea for the statue began while Garry was watching It’s A Sin in 2021. Garry says: “I was 21 when the programme was set and it was like watching aspects of my own life. Watching it, I knew I needed to do something.”
Garry’s work is truly inspirational, and we’re so grateful to him for mentioning us later in the piece. Tead the whole thing – and interviews with the amaxzing Louise Vallace and Eli Fitzgerland, too – over at the World AIDS Day website.
