Livre - Positive Lives

Positive Lives is an extraordinary collaboration. Patients, photographers, friends and lovers have come together to produce a unique photodocumentary about AIDS and HIV. Their shared objective is to show the broad range of responses, both practical and emotional, developed in the face of this pandemic. Responses not just to the need to care for the infected and the affected, but to the threat of its impact on atl our lives. Positive Lives is a human story. Behind the statistics, behind the campaigning, behind the prejudice and disinformation, are people. This is their story. The story of Rupert, a writer, who when very ill opened his life to the camera. The story of John and the loving collaboration of his family and his lover Michael. The story of Louise and Frank, buddies until his death, who allowed their extraordinary relationship to be recorded. The story of the East London theatre group and the young people who performed their own photo-love story about safer sex. Subjects as varied as gay life, sex, prisons, children and carers are portrayed with intensity and imagination. John Sturrock’s pictures of the Muirhouse Estate in Scotland are a shattering portrait of the effects of HIV and AIDS on an already deprived community. We hope that this book will educate, inform and inspire people about this issue, and help them to deal with its complexities. We trust it may in some way honour those who endure the effects of HIV and AIDS and those who have already lost their lives. ‘AIDS is the most personal disease there is. We can never be reminded often enough of the personal cost of being an AIDS sufferer.’ MIRIAM STOPPARD ‘an exciting demonstration of how powerfully photography can communicate one of the most critical global challenges of our age’ RICHARD BRANSON ‘The tragedies associated with AIDS touch every one of us, whether as partners, friends, parents, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. This very welcome book helps to reassure us of the integrity, the dignity and the unity of the human family in facing this adversity.’ BILL MORRIS ‘Exhibitions such as this may provide the impetus for a change in attitude towards HIV at all levels of society.’ The British Journal of Photography ‘Every image challenges stock responses and assumptions… These photos are a humbling experience. They break your heart but they also give hope…’ Time Out ‘superb documentary photography’ The Independent ‘These photographs eloquently reveal the fallacy of the all-too-common belief that people affected by HIV are somehow different from the rest of us in modern British society. Take a long look at the faces and the lives revealed herein – these people are our neighbours, our sons and daughters, our partners and loved ones. True courage is that with which ordinary people daily confront the extraordinary in their lives. This is the legacy that these men and women have given to us – let us learn from that and value it and them.’ TONY WHITEHEAD ‘I am very pleased to recommend this extremely informative and compassionate book, which examines so sympathetically one of the most urgent problems of our times.’ JOHN GIELGUD ‘The combination of photographs and words is overpowering. In this book you will find feelings and ideas and awareness that will move you unless you are made of stone; and not necessarily painfully. HIV infection does not always mean death and misery.’ CLAIRE RAYNER ‘Through The Samaritans I’ve proved that enabling discussion of taboo subjects saves lives. Courage to face the facts of AIDS will also save lives.’ CHAD VARAH ‘Positive Lives demonstrates how people affected by an illness, or the threat of one, can bring great things out of their experience. These photographic accounts display courage, occasional heroism, humour and affection in adversity – a lesson to us all.’ JULIA NEUBERGER