AIDS is getting old.
In many ways that’s a beautiful problem to have. The HIV/AIDS pandemic is aging largely because, thanks to better access to treatment, people are living longer. But people can also become positive later in life – in part because everyone assumes HIV is a younger person’s problem.
The Graying of AIDS is a multi-platform, web-based documentary project and educational campaign that combines high-quality documentary photographs, video, first person narratives, and up-to-date public health information and resources to explore the experiences of a diverse group of people age 50 and older who are living and aging with HIV/AIDS across the U.S. and around the globe.
This collaboration between documentary photographer Katja Heinemann and health educator and writer Naomi Schegloff, MPH, started as an examination of what it means to age with HIV/AIDS in the United States, with the aim of engaging, educating, and supporting those living and aging with HIV, as well as those working with them in health, social service, and health policy fields. When the International AIDS Conference came to the United States for the first time in almost 20 years in 2012, we seized the opportunity to expand our focus to explore the stories and perspectives of people aging with HIV/AIDS around the globe.
As of 2015, half of all people living with HIV in the United States were age 50 or older, and by 2020 that percentage is expected to rise to 70%. More than 3 million people age 50+ are thought to be “living positive” in Sub-Saharan Africa alone, a number that could triple by 2040. In reality, no one knows how many people age 50 and older are living with HIV/AIDS around the world: older adults are such a low priority that HIV/AIDS-related data collection often stops at age 49. What we do know is that the need for services will increase as future generations age with the virus.
But what does aging with HIV look like? Despite the increasing numbers of older adults who are living positive worldwide, we rarely see their faces or hear their stories in the media or popular culture. This multimedia, multi-platform “collective portrait” of aging and HIV/AIDS is working to change that.
Summary of Project Goals:
This documentary project and educational campaign aims to:
* Create and promote diverse representations of what it means to age with HIV/AIDS in the U.S. and around the world to raise awareness among older adults that they may be at risk for or living with HIV/AIDS, promote HIV testing, and encourage people of all ages to seek HIV/AIDS treatment as needed
* Provide much needed, highly-relatable materials celebrating and honoring the stories of older adults who are living positive
* Increase the number of health care and social service professionals who are aware of and sensitive to the risks and realities of HIV/AIDS in an older population
* Encourage dialog between older adults, their loved ones, and health care and social service providers to reduce stigma and ignorance and increase practical and emotional support for older adults, especially with regards to aging, sexual health, and HIV/AIDS-related concerns
* Promote interdisciplinary collaboration among health care and social service providers to improve the quality of prevention and treatment services for older adults
* Promote increased knowledge and sensitivity among the next generation of healthcare and social service professionals by providing curriculum and educational materials to training/certification programs and institutions
Project History:
A print feature and online multimedia essay initially developed by photojournalist Katja Heinemann for Time Magazine in 2006 elicited requests from educators interested in using the materials to help train nursing and medical students. A subsequent Audience Engagement/Distribution grant from the Open Society Institute Documentary Photography Project provided the seed money that allowed us to begin to address these requests, creating a documentary arts (photography, video, oral history) infused public health campaign that works on multiple levels and has evolved, over time, into a platform agnostic project that operates independently and in collaboration with nonprofit, for profit, media, research, and government partners. Our many project components and related projects include:
Stories From an Aging Pandemic ( www.agrayingpandemic.org): Our most recent, on-going body of work is a media project, participatory documentary installation, and online portrait and oral history archive. The participatory documentary installations – featuring a pop-up photo studio and interview station – have been a part of the 2012, 2014, and the upcoming 2016 Global Villages at the biennial International AIDS Conferences; these community oriented spaces are the only parts of these giant international conferences that are free and open to the public. HIV-positive adults aged 50+ are invited to sit for a formal portrait and share their stories of living and aging with HIV and AIDS. An evolving exhibition includes photographic portraits and excerpts from oral history interviews, updated over the course of the conference as new testimonies and portraits are collected. Additional installation activities invite people of all ages, no matter their HIV-status, to engage in intergenerational dialog about HIV and aging and to help shape the direction of the oral history interviews. The resulting “collective portrait” of the first generation of adults able to grow older with HIV/AIDS around the globe currently includes more than 100 stories and portraits from people representing 17 countries and 4 indigenous nations, and is accessible online.
The Graying of AIDS (www.grayingofaids.org): This project website – for our original, U.S. focused website – features photographic and video portraits, interview transcripts, a print-on-demand "magazine" for easy distribution and for populations less comfortable reading on a screen, as well as two project blogs, a range of educational tools, and valuable resource links.
Media partnerships (live link to GoA media page) have included both print and video pieces for a broad range of international, domestic, local, online, and professional/specialty media outlets.
Art Exhibits have included community-based public art installations and “Well Beyond HIV,” ( http://wellbeyondhiv.com/) a touring exhibition created in collaboration with Walgreens. (Go to www.facebook.com/GrayingOfAIDS/photos/?tab=albums to see some of our photos from these exhibits and other events we've been involved with)
A powerful Bus Shelter Campaign ( https://www.facebook.com/GrayingOfAIDS/photos/?tab=album&album_id=665685100146674 ) created in collaboration with nonprofit research and advocacy group ACRIA for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene for the City of New York brought beautiful large-scale portraits depicting older adults as unapologetically sexual beings to the streets of New York City, encouraging people of all ages to get tested, know their status, protect themselves, and get into treatment if necessary.
We are open to exploring new opportunities for collaboration and exhibiting our work. Please contact us at info@grayingofaids.org if you would like to discuss working with us to help get the word out about older adults who are living positive and the insights they have to share.
Learn More: http://www.grayingofaids.org