Second-year medical student Shana Kusin admires a panel of the AIDS Memorial Quilt on display in the Bernard Becker Medical Library. The unprecedented grass-roots art project features 47,000 panels, which are displayed in thousands of schools, churches, prisons and galleries across the world. Kusin lost a family friend to AIDS when she was young and says the quilt makes “the disease real to people and gives us a sense of hope.” Inspired by folk art tradition and created by thousands of ordinary people, the project, which was launched in 1987, aims to foster healing, heighten awareness and inspire action in the struggle against HIV and AIDS.