Nguyen Quoc Khanh
fell ill last year with tuberculosis at his home in
Vietnam and soon discovered he had HIV. By then he was too
weak to work and support his family.
Khanh had been a
longtime heroin user and likely contracted the virus
that causes AIDS through shared needles. The illness put
Khanh, his wife, and their two children -- who all
shared a single room -- at risk of losing their last
shreds of dignity. But only a few months later, after
Khanh began taking antiretroviral drugs, he regained his
strength, returned to work, and brought new hope to
his home.
"The whole family
structure was kind of falling apart," said Steve
McCurry, an American photographer who followed Khanh's
recovery. "For him to be able to get back to work and
get on his feet again was really encouraging."
Images by McCurry
and seven other photographers shape a new exhibit at
the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, which traces the
effects of antiretroviral drug treatment in the fight
against AIDS around the world. "Access to Life,"
organized by New York-based photography cooperative
Magnum Photos and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS,
Tuberculosis, and Malaria, will be on view through July 20.
The show, which
opened over the weekend, follows subjects with HIV from
India, Haiti, Mali, Peru, Russia, Rwanda, South Africa,
Swaziland, and Vietnam. They are portrayed through
video, Polaroid snapshots, and hundreds of photo
portraits. Admission is $6 for the exhibit, which will
eventually travel to Paris, Berlin, Rome and London.
The exhibit is a
timely one. It comes as Congress considers a dramatic
increase in U.S. contributions to the Global Fund, the
President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, and other
programs to fight AIDS and HIV in developing nations.
The House passed
a bill in April to more than triple AIDS funding, to $50
billion over the next five years. But the measure has
stalled in the Senate. The Global Fund is seeking a
$1.6 billion commitment from the United States for
2009, over $850 million in 2008.
Part of the goal
of opening the exhibit in Washington was "to shake up
policy makers and decision makers to continue the funding
for this project," said Mark Lubell, director of
Magnum Photos.
Also, he District
of Columbia has one of the worst HIV and AIDS infection
rates in the country.
The devastation
AIDS causes around the world is well-known, said Natasha
Bilimoria, executive director of the group Friends of the
Global Fight. "But the tremendous effort that has
begun all over the world to basically bring those who
are sentenced to death from HIV back to life is
actually not well-recognized at all," she said.
Photojournalist
Larry Towell documented the recovery of several people in
South Africa and Swaziland. Towell and other photographers
on the project worked with curators on presenting the
stories in the exhibit. Towell included video and
photos, along with captions he wrote in pencil on the
gallery walls.
"If the world
were 1,000 people, 600 would be living in a shantytown
with little access to health care," Towell wrote above his
panoramic photographs depicting the home of one of his
subjects.
"If I'm going to
be in an art gallery, I'm going to try to anchor the
work in the real world," he said.
Tobha Nzima, 35,
one of Towell's subjects in Mbabane, Swaziland, traveled
to Washington for the show's opening and said she was happy
with how it turned out. Part of the exhibit tells how
Nzima lost two long-term partners to AIDS as well as
her 8-year-old son. Now she and her 16-year-old
daughter are receiving treatment.
"I'm just making
an example to other people who maybe are living with
HIV disease," she said.
Some subjects in
the project did not survive long enough for a second
visit from the photographers. But the images show dramatic
improvements among those who joined support groups and
received medication in time.
The presence of
the photographers for weeks on end was a risk for
subjects such as the Khanh family in Vietnam. The family
runs a food stand selling porridge and rice cakes, and
their income dropped as people noticed the
photographer, generating rumors about Khanh's health.
"They let us come
back the second time, though," said Karen Emmons, a
writer and researcher who helped McCurry with the project.
"They were willing to take that risk." (AP)