Through Positive Eyes: living with HIV and Aids - a photo essay

These photographs and stories were produced by people living with HIV, who had been on a five-month workshop that developed their visual approaches and confronted the stigma associated with the illness

• The Banishing Stigma presentations are online, and groups are able to sign up at the Discovery Center website

Through Positive Eyes, a travelling exhibition of photos and stories by people living with HIV and Aids and curated by the UCLA Art & Global Health Center, was originally scheduled to open at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Discovery Center in the summer of 2020. Starting with an intensive 10-day workshop, the training was intended to support a group of HIV-positive people in learning how to share their stories and photographic images to confront the stigma associated with the illness.

Due to Covid-19, the expected workshop had to be reconsidered and transformed to a virtual setting. The result was an extended five-month version of the group workshop, augmented by individual sessions, during which the cohort bonded as a collective, considered various aspects of their HIV stories, and developed unique visual approaches and individual photographic voices for the virtual format.