How the memorial for South Crescent could look

ARTIST Anya Gallaccio once placed 10,000 roses in the Institute of Contemporary Arts and watched them slowly wilt.

In 1996 she also installed a 32-tonne block of ice in a disused waterworks in Wapping and watched it melt.

Now the artist has to create something a little more permanent – a lasting memorial to all those who suffered from HIV and AIDS – after winning the commission for the United Kingdom’s first permanent AIDS memorial, due to be sited in Bloomsbury.

The memorial will be Gallaccio’s first permanent public work in the UK and has been earmarked for South Crescent, Store Street, Bloomsbury.

She said the place was fitting: “It is a very public site and it appears at first to be a quiet location. But it is a deceptively quiet place, just off the really bustling Tottenham Court Road, so it is a very public place. People live here, work here, and use the road. It really has that sense of somewhere people come across.”

Gallaccio’s work features two circular pieces, one standing up, the other on its side, representing a tree trunk.

She said: “The tree is seen as a universal symbol of life and of times. Trees hold times in their rings. They are resilient and they mark geological events. That was important. The tree of knowledge is seen as something universal.

“I felt many groups could project on it, regardless of race and class.

“The monument will have pronouns carved into it in every language spoken in London, to show how it really impacts everyone.”

The Turner Prize nominee is known as one of the Young British Artists and currently holds a professorship at the University of California in San Diego.

Artist Anya Gallaccio won the commission from the charity AMUK or AIDS Memory UK

She added that the design would sit well with South Crescent.

“The crescent has London plane trees and they are good at surviving. That seemed to me to be another metaphor, just as the London planes live with pollution people can now live with HIV.”

Gallaccio (b1963) told Extra the design had been guided by the story it has to tell and the place it is sited.

She said: “Working in the public realm means there are a lot of stakeholders. There are considerations in terms of space, in terms of how it is used, and health and safety. Not very exciting but important to consider.”

The need for a landmark memorial, a place of reflection and to honour the memories of those who lost their lives, is vital, she added.

“AIDS and HIV is ongoing. People consider it something historic but it continues and this is important in terms of reminding, encouraging, people to think. It was such a devastating virus. We lost a whole generation.”

And the idea that there are forgotten victims is another element.

She said: “There are groups of people who have been overlooked. Many people see the epidemic as an event that affected gay men, but that is not the whole story.

“Today, 52 per cent of people living with AIDS or HIV are women and girls. A lot of women in sub-Saharan Africa are suffering and the same percentage applies to the UK today.

“It also affected people with blood disorders and intravenous drug users. These other groups have not always been acknowledged.

“We also want to remember the carers, remember the lesbians who gave blood, remember the people in the health service. This memorial is for everyone.”

The artist also recalled how in the 1980s the HIV epidemic impacted on so many people she knew.

She said: “I am part of the LGBTQ community, and I had friends, people who were role models, mentors, other people in my group of peers, who were affected.

“I remember people just disappeared. It was shocking.”