HIV-POSITIVE IN LOS ANGELES
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Twelve Stories
These works are the result of a unique collaboration. Twelve student photographers, twelve student writers, and twelve people living with HIV/AIDS worked together to create this collective portrait exploring the meaning of AIDS in Los Angeles in the year 2007.
In the early days of the AIDS epidemic in the U.S., photography played a powerful role. This was often controversial because photography is as capable of fomenting stigma as of generating activism.
Today the photography of AIDS is much less dramatic. The visual urgency has gone. The question we now face is- How might this medium be reenergized? What role might it play? Each piece inthis exhibition reflects the varying life circumstances and concerns of the HIV-positive subjects who so generously volunteered to share their lives.
South African photographer Gideon Mendel has played a leadership role as director of this project, and as contributor of the series of portraits that accompany the student works. He has spent much of the last thirteen years creating a body of work that documents the HIV/AIDS crisis in sub-Saharan Africa. Mendel's work in Africa has increasingly involved the interplay of powerful imagery with his subjects' written and spoken words. These ideas were the springboard for the student works and also for the sound installation.
Our aim here has been to create a new visual tool to fight complacency. With a million people living with HIV/AIDS in the U.S. today and a growing number of infections in minority communities and among women, we need to redouble our efforts to fight HIV/AIDS both in our own backyard and around the world.
Supporting Organizations:
Main Portraits by Gideon Mendel
Project Director: Gideon Mendel
Producers: David Gere and Hanni Rosenfeld
Exhibition Design: Carol Hobson
Web Developer & Manager: Byeong Sam Jeon
Sound Installation: Eddie Peel
Exhibition Installation: Patrick Polk
Web Designer: Dana Blunk
Printing Services: Chris Bassett, UCLA Department of Art Digital Studio, A&I Photographic and Digital Service
The Art + Activism series is a joint program of the UCLA Art|Science Center and the Art|Global Health Center at UCLA, with their respective departments, Design|Media Arts and World Arts and Cultures. Principal funding has been provided by the ArtsForum program of UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture, with additional support from the two centers; the two departments; the Office of InstructionalDevelopment; and UCLA Acting Chancellor Norman Abrams.Special thanks to UCLA AIDS Institute; the Fowler Museum; Simeon DEN who improvised extended vocals; and for program assistance to Coral LOPEZ of Bienester, Ruel NOLLEDO of APLA, Alicia AVALOS of Women Alive, and Vishal PATEL.
Alexandra Kravitz Andrew Hsieh Ankita Nigam Arianna Taboada Bobby Gordon Cayla McCrae Christina Long Cristina Coleman-Rosa Dana Blunk Elizabeth Schwegler Emily Feldstein
Emma Winder Hanni Rosenfeld Gail Romero Joe Hogan Kyla Searle Kylie Alesso Lauren Ross Marcelle Little Margaux Permutt Muskan Srivastava Sara Stranovsky Tida Sripanich Whitney Pierce