Arrivals + Departures Wednesday 5 May 2021 Artists Yara and Davina create ambitious public artworks that respond to site, context and audience. Their inventive, issue-based work is wide ranging, and uses a lightness of touch that make their works both poetic and universal. Arrivals + Departures invites the public to share the names of those who have arrived and departed on live boards, to acknowledge, celebrate and commemorate. On Wednesday 5 May 2021 Yara and Davina invited me to ‘takeover’ the boards of their Brighton International Festival exhibit in Pavilion Gardens to commemorate the lives of those who died from an AIDS-related illness in Brighton & Hove. It was an honour & a pleasure to be invited to be a part of this wonderful public artwork exploring birth, death, and the journey in between. ‘In the roaring waters, I hear the voices of dead friends Love is life that lasts forever My hearts memory turns to you...’    Andrea Philippe Regard   Arrival - 16 March 1965 / Departure - 13 May 1991   Graham Charles Wilkinson   Arrival - 08 December 1949 / Died 22 August 1990 (London Lighthouse)   David Andrew Jones ‘Cooch’   Arrival - 17 July 1962 / Departure - 18 October 1999   Gary Beverly   Arrival - 26 September 1956 / Departure - 23 June 1993   Father Marcus Riggs   Arrival -1955 / Departure - 10 July 1998   Clive Bentley   Arrival - 07 August 1961 / Departure - 17 August 1994   Kevin John Dodd   Arrival - 21 May 1962 / Departure - February 1992 The quoted text comes from the film ‘Blue’ by Derek Jarman.

David Andrew Jones, known to everyone as Cooch, entered my life in the late summer of 1987. I was immediately taken by his dark good looks and the amazing twinkle in his Celtic blue eyes. Our relationship was tumultuous, but fun and loving in so many ways. David had his own interests and loved his freedom, so he didn’t settle into work easily, instead he dreamt of going to university to study design - his real passion. In 1994 after completing an Art Foundation course, he secured a place at Kingston University and we moved to a modernist house in Shepperton. These were happy days for us because David loved his course and I’d found my dream job, but sadly things were not to last. In 1995 we both tested HIV positive after naively assuming we’d be negative, and it wasn’t long before I fell ill with pneumonia and cytomegalovirus (CMV) - both linked to the late stages of AIDS. My stomach, eyes and lungs were also badly affected, and I remember the consultant telling me I had six months left to live, but at that time David showed no symptoms. New HIV drugs improved my health but there were hideous side effects to deal with. I needed a level of care that David was happy to give, so we sold our house and toured Europe to enjoy what we both assumed would be the last part of our lives together. David preferred a strict diet and keeping fit to any medication, but in March 1999 he started to get ill and was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. Despite advice that any treatment would be pointless, he insisted on a chemotherapy program which left him tied to opiates to help with the pain and a shadow of his former self. He was incredibly brave and still wanted to care for me, but the roles were reversed and in August David had to go into hospital. I slept on the floor by his bed so I could attend to his personal care and dignity, but he never left the ward and died there in October. A big funeral took place with all his friends and family present.   David and I spent 12 years together filled with passion, love, adventure and kinky spontaneity. He was different and his own man, but kind and honest. A dare devil who remained true to his own values. Dwi'n dy garu di yn wastad ac am byth – Richard Jeneway

The Brighton AIDS Memorial Exhibition was displayed at the Dorset Gardens Methodist Church and the Ledward Centre on Jubilee Street between the 24th November and the 4th December 2021 'Love is life that lasts forever'