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• 1 media/IMG_2878_Original.jpg 2022-06-19T18:29:12+00:00 Art as Activism: The Aids Epidemic 15 plain 2022-06-22T08:07:34+00:00

  
  
  
  

  Unfortunately, HIV/AIDS continues to be a global health issue. Approximately 38 million people are currently living with HIV, and tens of millions of people have died of AIDS-related causes since the beginning of the epidemic ( Global Health Policy 2021). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it states that “Black/African American people are most affected by HIV. In 2019, Black/African American people accounted for 42% (15,340) of all new HIV diagnoses. Additionally, Hispanic/Latino people are also strongly affected. They accounted for 29% (10,502) of all new HIV diagnoses”. Although race and ethnicity were not factors in AIDS reports in 1981, in the next couple of years it became clear that miniorities were disproportionately affected by the new disease (Royels, 2017). In addition, the homophobic rhetoric from the 1950s leading up to the epidemic of the 1980s affected American government AIDS interventions (Fisch 2022). From then, many activists of color reached out to established AIDS organizations to improve their services to minority communities (Royels, 2017). Organizations such as the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, and others developed AIDS education programs for local Black and Latino communities by the late 1980s (Royels, 2017). This was one of the many activist initiatives that were enforced during the aids epidemic, another one was visual artwork.
  
  In 1987, Avram Finkelstein, Brian Howard, Oliver Johnston, Charles Kreloff, Chris Lione, and Jorge Socarrás founded the SILENCE=DEATH Project and created the iconic logo (Brooklyn Museum). These artists were inspired by the posters of the Art Workers Coalition and the Guerrilla Girls, in which the pink triangle is a reference to nazi persecution of LGBTQIA+ members in the 1930-40s (the Brooklyn Museum). The following artists then lent the image to the newly formed activist group, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), who used the image as a form of cultural activism and placed the logo on the group's chants, street protests, and crafted images (Sember & Gere, 2011). In 1988, ACT UP members created the art collective Gran Fury, which was dedicated to “exploiting the power of art to end the AIDS crisis” (Sember & Gere, 2011). Through their work, they increased the visibility of the AIDS epidemic by attracting the attention of the mainstream media that had, up until that point, focused only on the suffering of individuals who were sick (Sember & Gere, 2011). This radical shift in cultural analysis and activism transformed public health and inspired new forms of social activism, where many of ACT UP's tactics influenced health-related social movements afterward.