Whatshot
Through Positive Eyes
Through Positive Eyes
The exhibition coincides with AIDS 2016: The International AIDS Conference in Durban.
Through Positive Eyes puts cameras into the hands of HIV-positive people, encouraging them to show their faces and daily lives as a response to stigma, putting their words and images at the heart of the response to the disease.
At the opening, Judge Edwin Cameron spoke of his personal journey with living with HIV / AIDS and how he "bought" back his life by going onto ARVs. Hearing about the murder of Gugu Dlamini in KwaMashu in December 1998 after she had declared her HIV status on national radio, influenced him hugely. "My life was given back to me due to wealth and privilege, her death made it impossible for me to live in silence."
Cameron is still the only public person in public office to have declared his HIV positive status. "This exhibition is important for visibility and ownership. Declaring ones status is a personal decision and a big request, but hopefully this exhibition will help to counter that stigma."
Margaret Hemphill from the Ford Foundation, part funders of the exhibition, said: "The photographs tell such profound stories. They are quite extra ordinary and go a long way towards addressing inequalities."