A unique multi-media exhibition at the Iziko Slave Lodge, Through Positive Eyes, puts cameras into the hands of people who are living with HIV/AIDS, encouraging them to document their daily lives. The project is co-directed by London-based South African photographer and AIDS activist Gideon Mendel, who has been chronicling HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa since 1993. The courageous ‘artivists’ who form an integral part of the exhibition, take you into their lives through their personal descriptions of living with HIV and AIDS in their communities. This must-see exhibition will open your eyes to the ‘humanness’ and vulnerability of living with this condition.
Over the past ten years, 122 persons living with HIV/AIDS in ten major cities have participated in this collaborative photography project, contributing to an archive of photographs and mini-documentaries, all available online at www.ThroughPositiveEyes.org. This exhibition hopes to facilitate dialogue and dynamic debate in a space with a history of oppression, silence and pain.
The positive outcome as a result of a well networked exhibition and partnership truly resonates with our theme at the Slave Lodge ̶ rethinking this site of “Human Wrongs” into a space of “Human Rights”. Within a welcoming and safe environment, visitors are able to engage freely with local ‘artivists’ who make themselves available daily to share their stories about living and coping with the stigma of HIV and AIDS. Their poignant stories provide insight into the stigma faced by those living with the disease, and offer hope that through breaking the silence around this disease, the stigma of HIV will be banished.
Through Positive Eyesends its run at the Slave Lodge on 28 February 2018.
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