In Australia this year, WAD is in part being marked by the opening
of the Access to Life exhibition at
the Powerhouse museum in Ultimo, to coincide with the 30 years since the first
case of HIV was diagnosed in Sydney. The exhibition, which has toured Rome,
Madrid, Oslo, New York, Oakland, Tokyo and Seoul since opening in 2008, is a
collection of case study photographs of people affected by HIV/AIDS taken by
some of the world’s leading photographers from the Magnum photographic agency,
and has been organised in partnership between the Global Fund to Fight AIDS,
Tuberculosis and Malaria and Magnum Photos. The Global Fund is a public/private
partnership and international financing institution that supports large-scale
prevention and treatment against the three major diseases of poverty. In the
Asia Pacific region alone, half a million people have received life-saving HIV/AIDS
treatment due to the Global Fund.
Members of RESULTS Australia, along with a number of key
people involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS, attended the opening of the
exhibition in Sydney this week. The evening included speeches by the chair of
the Global Fund, Simon Bland and the Governor General of Australia and patron
of the Global Fund, Quentin Bryce. There were also two joint musical
performances by Australian and Papua New Guinean artists. Local David Bridie
performed with PNG singer George Mamua Telek, and members
of the Australian band the Jezebels performed with the PNG-born singer Ngaiire.
Ngaiire’s powerful performance was heightened by her positioning on a raised, red
velvet-draped podium in the centre of the Powerhouse museum, backed by a
rotating show of moving photographs projected onto the wall behind her. The
images were taken from the series of photographs from Papua New Guinea, a new
part of the exhibition unveiled for the first time in Sydney on this opening
night.
Click on the links below to find out more about the exhibition.
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