The new artwork brings together students, staff and alumni to honour LGBTQIA+ history and celebrate lived experience, while reflecting UNSW's deep connection to the queer community.
UNSW Sydney will showcase a new collaborative artwork at one of Australia's most iconic and beloved events, the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras .
The UNSW Queer Community Quilt was inspired by the iconic 1985 AIDS Memorial Quilt . The new project, with more than 100 individually crafted patches, features personal reflections and messages that will form the centrepiece of UNSW's float at the Mardi Gras Parade.
Patches were created by students, staff, alumni and partners, honouring queer history, connection and shared experience. The 2x8 metre quilt was produced in collaboration with the Kirby Institute , a world-leading health research facility, which is celebrating 40 years.
Art shaped by community and history
UNSW Vice-President, Societal Impact, Equity and Engagement, Professor Verity Firth AM, said the project was a powerful expression of community and belonging.
"This quilt is about visibility, memory and inclusion," Prof. Firth said. "Each patch carries a personal story, and together they form something bigger - a shared history of resilience and pride across generations of our community.
"It connects the lived experiences of our students, staff and alumni with UNSW's long history of LGBTQIA+ advocacy and research. We're proud to foster a university community that doesn't just support inclusion in principle but lives it in practice."
Australian fashion designer, artist and UNSW alum Jordon Gogos helped produce the quilt, creating bespoke sections featuring archival photographs from the Kirby Institute's 40-year history. He also stitched together the final work.
"Everyone in the community takes something different from it, whether they're deeply embedded in it or engaging as allies," Jordon Gogos said.
"There are shared symbols (in the quilt), but meaning is never fixed. A love heart might mean one thing now, and something entirely different six months later. That openness, that unbound sense of aesthetics and meaning-making, is what matters to me."
Artist, fashion designer and UNSW alum Jordan Gogos worked on the quilt. Photo: UNSW Sydney
The UNSW Queer Community Quilt is made up of more than 100 individual patches. Photo: UNSW Sydney
Students, staff, alumni and partners have been working on the quilt for months. Photo: UNSW Sydney
Celebrating 40 years of the Kirby Institute
The Kirby Institute has played a globally significant role in HIV research, contributing to almost every major HIV treatment trial and leading the study that resulted in Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) - a medicine to lower the risk of catching HIV - being listed on the PBS in Australia .
Director of the Kirby Institute, Scientia Professor Anthony Kelleher, said the artwork honoured the Institute's longstanding commitment to community partnership, inclusion and evidence-based advocacy.
"I'm incredibly proud and humbled by the Kirby Institute's 40-year long history of productive partnership with LGBTQIA+ communities. Through these partnerships, we've achieved incredible advances in sexual health and wellbeing. I'm delighted by this Mardi Gras collaboration with UNSW, which pays tribute to a history of collaboration, hard work and brave research that combats stigma and discrimination."
UNSW is proud to have one of 200 floats in this year's Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade. The Queer Community Quilt will be displayed at the Kirby Institute later.
