The Art of AIDS

Saving History
Visual AIDS is an organization that campaigns for HIV prevention and AIDS awareness through producing visual art projects, while also assisting artists who are living with HIV. One of its major functions is to preserve the work of HIV-positive artists as well as the artistic contributions of the AIDS movement through its repository of images of all types of pieces created by HIVers over the years so that their legacy is not lost. Working to turn attention to the often overlooked females who are affected by HIV, a section of the agency’s website, Women of Visual AIDS, pays tribute to those who’ve incorporated their HIV status into their works. And each January the agency holds the Postcards From the Edge fund-raiser, in which the public can purchase one-of-a-kind creations on postcards. The creative twist to the benefit is that when a buyer selects a purchase from the several hundred available, no one knows until after the transaction is complete if it was created by one of the many HIVers represented by the agency or by a celebrity. And unlike in earlier years, buyers can even do their shopping for the postcards online now.