An interview with Kevin Ryan - Positive Lives
Project Director - by Kathy Triffitt
Documentary photography shows the camera at its most potent and radical. The very subject-matter of the documentary photographer is an index of the contentious and problematic as well as of emotional and difficult experiences: illness, poverty, social and political injustice, war, disaster, and suffering are all difficult areas to photograph and all potentially problematic in the way a photographer will approach their meanings in terms of his or her own assumptions. The documentary photograph is equally one of the most intimate forms of photographic practice and, in turn, one that explicitly associates itself with public space. It assumes a bond between reader and subject, not just to record, but to expose the 'camera with a conscience'.
Positive Lives began 10 years ago as a collaboration led by volunteers between the Terrence Higgins Trust, Network Photographers and the Levi Strauss Foundation. Through the use of photographs of plwha and their personal testimonials the exhibition Positive Lives responded to negative and stereotyped images of plwha circulated in mainstream media at the time. The lived experience of plwha had been confined to the image of the isolated gay man dying in a hospital ward, to signs and symptoms of the disease and to unidentifiable silhouettes.
Positive Lives provided an alternative to this type of representation with 'positive' imagery designed to give aids a face, to humanise an epidemic, which had been universally represented as a mask of death. Such alternative counter-images represented plwha as people with lives outside of hiv, as people who were not guilty for their own diagnosis, as people who were to be identified with, not shunned, pitied, abused, or judged, and as people living with, not dying from, aids. This represented a collective resistance to discrimination and the widely prevailing fatalism of the times.
Today, audiences, whether they be found in rural villages in the Philippines, the subway stations in South Korea, an elderly citizen's centre in Hong Kong or the National Gallery in Kuala Lumpur are provided with exhibitions and programs which identify the diverse and different needs of plwha. The overall aim is to challenge the stigma and prejudice of hiv in communities and to persuade politicians, religious leaders and community leaders to challenge the misconceptions concerning the realities of living with hiv and aids.
The stories and photographs highlight various themes, which address locally, defined needs and objectives, and which ensure local participation. The emphasis on lived experiences along with the celebration of difference and the acknowledgment of similarities is pivotal to Positive Lives' philosophy. It recognises the social imbalances in power, and a need to address such an issue, through positive actions for change. One of the ways this has been achieved is by insisting that marginalised voices be heard alongside government officials in press conferences, at public forums and exhibition openings. The range of stories presented are complex, and are based on an understanding of multiple, sometimes competing interpretations and the politics of hiv and aids in participating countries and communities.
'The vision of the Positive Lives Project is that the stories should be accessible to the widest possible audience and be utilised for health and education purposes.'1 The question asked by a woman from a rural village in Malaysia on 'how do you hang the exhibition in trees?' demonstrates the diversity of its audiences and shows some insight into how the stories are produced and received.
Kevin Ryan, Positive Lives Project Director who is hiv positive himself, provides further insight into this project.
Q What are the aims of Positive Lives?
The aims of the Positive Lives Project are challenging stigma and prejudice by changing the attitudes of those who lead and of the general public, and providing support and inspiration to those who are living with the virus. A lot of people have adopted some very positive attitudes for themselves or as communities which actually inspire others. If you are feeling alone and isolated and can't or don't feel comfortable to put your hand up to say I'm hiv positive because of the prejudice and stigma, to see someone's image, to read someone's story, I think is very inspiring. It is not only about taking someone's story and transplanting it. It is also about working back in those communities where the stories come from.
Q Can you talk more about working back in those communities where the stories come from?
If we are going to work in a community in a particular country, for instance Cambodia, if we are going to document aspects of hiv in that country, it's also important to work with those communities. We are an organisation run by volunteers. We don't have giant cash resources. We don't have lots of people running around. We have to be very careful about how we progress, so we work with local organisations wherever they exist. Sometimes we will work with international agencies that are working in that arena and sometimes we will work with individuals. […] The idea is that we document certain stories, that those stories can then be utilised in a broader exhibition, in various projects, in smaller exhibitions, in smaller health and education programs perhaps in Cambodia, perhaps in other countries. The aim is to give material to communities, to organisations to work with, to start changing people's attitudes and to provide inspiration.
To give some examples […] one of the stories that we did was of the Pengasih Rehabilitation Centre in Kuala Lumpur. That's a centre run for and by recovering drug addicts. It is a very strict program. Many of those people are now hiv positive or have progressed to aids. This is in a predominantly Muslim country where drug taking can result in the death penalty. It is a very brave thing that these people do: one, to run the rehabilitation centre and two, to be prepared to assist in a program such as Positive Lives. They are now working with the Malaysia AIDS Council on a drugs and youth program. They are going out into the streets where drugs are rife, popular young people's centres, putting up the exhibition, getting people out there to talk about drugs, to talk about hiv.
Another story is of a Muslim woman in the Philippines, Noora, who was infected by her husband and has a child. Her story is all about her will to live and her determination to look after her daughter.
There is a wonderful story of a women's group in a slum in Cambodia where the women have come together to look after each other and their kids when some of them fall ill. They have basically done that themselves. They're proud of what they've done, as they should be. It's an inspiration to others. It's also an inspiration for others to speak out. To try and get others to come together to say this is everyone's problem. It affects all of us. […] This is meant in a way to be a mirror. It's about saying that could be me, that could be my family and maybe I should rethink about hiv because it's not the way the papers are portraying it, or the government is portraying it, or my religion is portraying it.
I read those stories, I look at those photographs and I just think that they are incredibly powerful. In these countries where this project goes, they don't have any support. Anything at all that is supportive of a person's position is incredibly powerful to them. The stories and photographs serve as a catalyst for training programs, communication activities […] they're a starting point for the sharing of personal experiences [and inviting change].
Positive Lives was just in Kuala Lumpur. […] It was held at the National Art Gallery. The Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for Health and the Minister for Tourism opened it. One of the conditions of it going there was that Positive Lives required that there be representation of minority groups on the stage in the press conferences, everywhere. One of the stories was of a transsexual sex worker; another was of a drug rehabilitation centre. Those people were there; they were acknowledged and the issues were talked about in the speeches and at the press conference. That's a great sea change for a staunchly Muslim country. […] At the same time the Malaysia AIDS Council, which is the local hiv organisation, was showing a mini exhibition in a market stall in Kuala Lumpur, in a fruit and vegie market. They had volunteers and employees handing out information about hiv. Another group were taking it to rural villages. What made me smile was a woman who was organising the village tours asked me 'how do you hang the exhibition in trees? You must have had that problem before. Can you give me the manual about hanging pictures in trees?'
Q What is Positive Lives currently working on?
At the moment I am reviewing proposals for a number of countries for next year for funding from Levis Strauss. One proposal is from Cambodia, which is doing a lot of work in relation to hiv education. They want to run a schools program. Another one is run by a women's group and its targeted audience is garment factory workers. In Cambodia there are huge numbers of textile factories where you get a lot of country women coming in, country girls coming in with no support, with no family living very hard existences, being paid very badly and with no education.
There are other projects planned for Eastern Europe, China, India and Africa. Action Aid who is a major sponsor of the project globally and the United Nations Development Program are working with us in Tanzania to set up a training program with an educational manual for the refugee camps using Positive Lives. There is a lot on and it's not about big exhibitions. It's about working with local communities; it's about providing support and resources to local hiv organisations. Ultimately the education has to come from the participating individuals, groups and organisations.
Positive Lives will be exhibited from 24th October to 8th November 2002 in the foyer of NSW Parliament (Macquarie St Sydney) as part of the Cultural Program of the Gay Games. Admission is free. The exhibition focuses on stories that address the prejudice, silences and discrimination experienced by those living in Asian countries and also the resilience of individuals and communities in the face of adversity. It will then travel to Dhaka Bangladesh where it opens on December 1 (World AIDS Day).
Positive Lives has been sponsored by NSW Ministry of Health, Gay Games and Levi Strauss Foundation. The exhibition organisers would like to acknowledge the assistance of the AIDS Trust of Australia. It should also be emphasised that the Levi Strauss Foundation has funded Positive Lives since its inception.
People Living With HIV/AIDS New South Wales would like to thank Kevin Ryan and Network Photographers for providing the photographs published in this article. Information on Positive Lives is available at www.positivelives.com
References:
1) Positive Lives. Positive Responses to HIV. A Terrence Higgins Trust-Network Photographers Collaboration, Exhibition Catalogue, 2003, p.26.
