Power of art to confront AIDS denialism in South Africa explored in Birkbeck symposium
Senior figures who were at the epicenter of the South African HIV/AIDS crisis in the late 1990s and early 2000s will gather at the Peltz Gallery
HIV/AIDS denialism under the regime of former South African president, Thabo Mbeki, and its impact upon women and children, will be explored in a forthcoming conference at the Peltz Gallery at Birkbeck's School of Arts.
Senior political figures, campaigners and artists who were at the epicenter of the South African HIV/AIDS crisis in the late 1990s and early 2000s will gather at the London gallery this winter to explore the crossover between the spheres of art, medicine and politics.
Women and HIV/AIDS in South Africa: Medicine, Art, Activism, which is being co-organized by Professor Annie Coombes and Dr. Hilary Sapire in the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck, will be held on 7 and 8 December.
Among the prominent figures participating in the two-day symposium are:
- Pioneering HIV/AIDS and gay-rights activist, Justice Edwin Cameron of the South African Constitutional Court
- Vuyiseka Dubula, former Deputy Head of Treatment Action Campaign and now working for Sonke Gender Justice.
- Artist and activist, Nondumiso Hlwele, who will showcase her life-sized body map using a therapeutic technique developed in Khayelitsha during the early years of the crisis
The symposium runs alongside a 10-week exhibition, Positive Lives: Art and AIDS in South Africa, which has been curated by Prof Coombes. The symposium and exhibition aim to highlight the current state-of-play in South Africa, as well as demonstrate how art can be used as a vehicle for inspiring political debate and dialogue around highly sensitive health issues.
Speaking of the historical backdrop of the events at the Peltz Gallery, Prof Coombes said: “Thabo Mbeki’s reticence in making anti-retroviral drugs widely available because of his emphasis on HIV/AIDS as primarily a disease of poverty was tragically misguided and meant that many people died needlessly under his regime.”
Through the campaigning of South African activist health agencies such as Treatment Action Campaign (hailed as “the world’s most effective AIDS group”) and international NGOs like Médecins Sans Frontières, access to treatment has now vastly improved. But, as Prof Coombes explained, the damage done during the early years of Mbeki’s regime has left a dark legacy.
Prof Coombes said: “At a time when health epidemics such as TB and Ebola outbreaks in Africa dominate the press, there is a perception that the HIV/AIDS crisis has simply disappeared. But the crisis of HIV/AIDS in South Africa is clearly not over.
“A new response is needed to meet continuing stigmatization and disadvantage to those living with the disease. Women are often most directly affected, from the economic necessities of sex-work with its increased risks of contracting the disease, to the possibilities of transmission from mother to child and the economic and emotional responsibilities of family care.”
The two-day symposium, Women and HIV AIDS in South Africa: Medicine, Art, Activism will be held on Monday 7 and Tuesday 8 December. The full conference programme can be seen here.
The exhibition, Positive Living: Art and AIDS in South Africa, runs at the Peltz Gallery, 43 Gordon Square, from Friday, until Friday 22 January 2016. Opening times are Mondays to Fridays, 10am-8pm, and Saturdays, 10am-5pm.
The series of events also features a special World AIDS Day event on Tuesday 1 December: Representing AIDS: Sunil Gupta, Simon Watney, Parminder Sekhon & Annie E. Coombes in Conversation. Find out more
Find out more
- Women and HIV/AIDS in South Africa: Medicine, Art, Activism
- School of Arts
- Department of History, Classics and Archaeology
(Image caption: Body Map (detail) by Nondumiso Hlwele, 2002)