Women and HIV/AIDS in South Africa: Medicine, Art, Activism. (360G-Wellcome-109287_Z_15_Z)

Following World AIDS Day 2015 we propose a public lecture and one-day symposium with two interdisciplinary panels; the first provides perspectives from experts in the arenas of policy, social psychology, anthropology and the history of medicine. The second focuses on memorialization and representation, featuring South African photojournalists and women's community art activists whose work will be shown in Birkbeck's Peltz Gallery. The event concludes in the evening, with a public keynote lec ture by Edwin Cameron, Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, followed by a reception at the Peltz Gallery. The next day delegates will participate in a walkabout and discussion with participating artists and the curator Professor Annie E. Coombes in the Peltz exhibition, Positive Living: Art and AIDS in South Africa which features work from photo journalists, fine artists, youth print workshop initiatives (to promote safe sex) and community activists engaged today and during the height of AIDS denialism. Our hope is that this symposium will stimulate a more integrated approach to the challenges of HIV and act as an incentive to health professionals and policy makers to recognize the value of working collaboratively with artist-activists and historians of the pandemic.