Photo snippets: lives touched by Aids

A little girl in striking red clothes stands by the side of the road. A family sits together in their lounge, posing for the camera. The energy and movement of everyday township life is captured in the image of a group of boys playing soccer. Simple and yet strikingly effective, images such as these form the bulk of the Defined by Four Letters exhibition – an expression of the lives and identities of HIV-infected clients of the Raphael Centre in Grahamstown, as seen through their eyes. The photographs, together with several drawings and personal testimonies, are the result of five months of art therapy classes held at the Raphael Centre by student volunteer Karen Hye.

“Every class had a theme,” explains Hye. “I would ask the women to draw a symbol of what they felt best represented who they were, or I would ask them to draw their family, or to think back to their fondest memories. These themes then provided the guidelines for what the women would explore when we first gave out disposable cameras and encouraged them to capture aspects of their lives.”

The expression of identity in the photographs is subtly conveyed, and at first glance may be easy to miss. A closer look at some of the images, however, reveals some poignant details of the hopes, thoughts and fears of the participants involved. The picture of a funeral parlour, for example, hints at the constant fear of death, whereas the images of the inside of a church, a bible and a woman in her church outfit reveal the faith and religious commitment which make the hardships and challenges of everyday life easier to bear. The theme of family and friends also informs a large part of the exhibition – a reminder of the importance of love and support for all those infected and affected by HIV / Aids.

One would expect an exhibition dealing with the theme of lives defined by HIV / Aids to be rather grim and depressing, but the altogether positive outlook and messages of hope in Defined by Four Letters is quite overwhelming.

“The sickness is not an issue in my life,” writes 38-year-old Ntombekhaya Adam in her personal testimony. “The importance of my life is all the dreams that I have before I diagnosed. I still have them. Nothing can change that, and my life is going on more than before.”

HIV/AIDS status
Nomvuyo Malangeni, another of the artists involved in the exhibition, was diagnosed with HIV / Aids in 1996, but only found the courage to disclose her status in 2002. Shortly afterwards, she became involved in many of the Raphael Centre’s projects – including photography and beadwork.

“I’m 35 years old and I’d never owned a camera before this,” she laughs. “The pictures we took were so interesting for me. The beadwork was also new to me. I have the hope that I will keep doing beadwork even when the festival is over. After everything that I’ve learned at the Raphael Centre I would encourage people to go for free testing so that they too may know their status.”

“It’s incredible for me to see how much these women have opened up through their photography,” says Hye. “The personal testimonies were the final thing that we did. I gave them guidelines, but no one was under any obligations. By the end of the project, however, every single person had told their story.”