Through Positive Eyes is an international collaboration based on the fundamental belief that photography pursued in the right way can make a positive difference in the world. Directed by South African photographer and AIDS activist Gideon Mendel, the project invites a group of HIV-positive participants to photograph their daily lives, challenging stigma against people living with HIV/AIDS through dissemination and exhibition of these self-images. The idea is to present images of normal people, approachable people, who are living well and energetically with the virus.

This participatory art making also empowers HIV-positive people, creating a space for them to share their views and experiences with an often indifferent world. MAKE ART/STOP AIDS first teamed up with Mendel in 2007 for a Los Angeles based project entitled HIV Positive in LA: Twelve Stories. In the program Mendel worked with UCLA students and a group of people living with HIV to create a “tool of visual advocacy.” The collection featured portraits of the participants as well as text, allowing them to share stories, experiences, and what it means to them to be HIV-positive today. The images and text were widely exhibited and also published in the Los Angeles Times.

The next round took place in Mexico City under a Spanish title, Una Mirada Positiva. There, fifteen people living with HIV photographed their own lives for a unique exhibition, presented at the XVII International AIDS Conference in August 2008. The collection featured a distinctive installation for each participant, consisting of one large portrait by Mendel and a mini-exhibition of twelve images taken by the participants themselves. MAKE ART/STOP AIDS and Mendel worked together alongside Alejandro Brito Lemus, an accomplished AIDS activist, writer, and director of Letra S, a community-based organization that focuses on Sida (AIDS), sexuality, and stigma—among other “s” issues.

The most recent incarnation, entitled Olhares Posithivos, took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in collaboration with the Brazilian Ministry of Health and local AIDS NGO ABIA. Seventeen people living with HIV/AIDS were given cameras and training, and enthusiastically embraced the art of the photography. The resulting artwork captured the complexity of a society where treatment is available, but where, for many, stigma and inequality continue to define daily life.

Future locations for the project include South Africa, India, Ukraine, and ultimately New York City, home of the United Nations.

Through Positive Eyes tells the contemporary story of HIV/AIDS—one that is local and global, personal and universal. It is a story that simply must be told.

Through Positive Eyes has been made possible in part by support from the Ford Foundation and UC Mexus.

For more pictures on this project, please click here