Photos dignify AIDS victims

Photographer Ken Wong brought more than 90 portraits of victims of HIV and AIDS to campus Tuesday.

The black-and-white photographs form a mosaic and attempt to capture and evoke the many emotions associated with the disease.

Wong displayed his mosaic at the Gillings School of Global Public Health as part of the Face-to-Face AIDS Project.

Face-to-Face is a national organization that supports education and help for children in Cambodia and Malawi.

Using photographs and videos" the project aims to bring individual stories of HIV and AIDS victims to the United States to teach about the crisis and raise money for those who suffer from the disease.

""I wanted to show the enormity of AIDS in Africa and try to capture the individual" the person underneath the disease" said Wong, executive director of Face-to-Face.

Wong, who first travelled to Africa in 2003, began photographing HIV and AIDS victims as a way to commemorate their personalities on film.

The mosaic was presented by the student global health committee's Narratives of HIV project.

Wong used his photos to tell the stories of some of the victims, like Gladys Mahala, a 19-year-old woman from Malawi who suffered from HIV, acute malaria, meningitis and tuberculosis. Orphaned and homeless, Mahala would not talk or smile, and doctors advised Wong to let her die in peace.

But Wong and his coordinators in the project did not give up, instead bringing Mahala to hospitals for treatment, where she eventually began to lose her shyness and was able to attend school.

Seeing her smile and hearing her sing to our video cameras brought tears to our eyes"" said Wong, who added that these successful moments are the most meaningful part of his work.

The Face-to-Face AIDS Project shows students the reality of the health problems around the world, said Matt Avery, chairman of the Narratives of HIV project.

In public health" we study so much of the academic and research-oriented aspects of HIV and AIDS and I think we begin to lose sight of things non-research-oriented he said.

Raising awareness for HIV is the most important thing to us" said Lizzie Harvey, a member of the committee.

For Wong, making connections between AIDS-stricken countries and the United States is the best sign of his project's progress.

These people are so near to death but seem so much closer to life than the rest of us"" and hope will lie in building the community from the bottom.""


Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.