Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2005. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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New Vision (Kampala) - October 28, 2005
Stephen Ssenkaaba
The AIDS story has certainly been well told but probably not well shown.
Nowhere is this story better told than at the ongoing Positive Lives photo exhibition at the Lugogo UMA showgrounds.
The show, organised by Action Aid International (Uganda Chapter), opened on October 17 and will go on until November 10.
It is a collection of still camera photographs taken by eight experienced photographers from South and sub-Saharan Africa, the UK, India and the US, highlighting the different faces of AIDS in the world.
Guided by the overriding theme of "positive living", the different photographs bear strong and mixed messages of hope, courage, despair and destruction that have come to characterise AIDS today. The images, accompanied by moving texts, portray different scenes and moments of people in different parts of the world struggling with the scourge. Through the accompanying texts, the subjects in the images share their experience with us, making us part and parcel of their lives.
Through the camera lenses, the photographers take us through a haunting journey of reality depicting suffering communities in South Africa, the poor women in India struggling to fight the social stigma and how through sharing, different communities in Tanzania,India, Zambia and other parts of the world have learned to cope with AIDS. Mathias Mugisha, a Ugandan photojournalist, captures telling moments of how AIDS and poverty have ripped through Uganda's countryside, how, despite their suffering, the poor people in the villages can still manage a smile on their faces. A good sense of mood and contrast between light and darkness by Mugisha and other photographers play a crucial part in portraying the devastating effects of AIDS on the world and the hope and courage with which the scourge is being fought.
Deep within the raw dark and bright shades of the camera photos lie emotion and suffering. The big question remains: Are we doing enough?
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