Delegates, XXI International AIDS Conference, Durban, 2016

This body of conceptual portraits was made in Durban, South Africa at the XXI International AIDS Conference (IAC) this past July. The IAC occurs every two years at a different site around the world. It is the premier gathering for people who work in the field of HIV/AIDS. Delegates to the conference include people living with HIV, community leaders, public health specialists, researchers, scientists, advocates, donors and policy makers. I attend these convenings in support of the international HIV organizing work that I do with the Global Forum on MSM & HIV. This work is part of an ongoing series that I have made at every IAC since 2008. By excluding faces but highlighting details, the images allow the delegates to retain their unique individuality even as they remain anonymous. The sheer quantity of bodies reverberates with countless questions, evoking the scale of the burgeoning pandemic yet also the breakthroughs, challenges and promise of our collective efforts. Metaphors for the disease abound in these pictures, in the juxtapositions and interactions between bodies, the silences and engagements, and the whirling combinations of mass and isolation. HIV spreads through contact between people, but is ultimately caused by ignorance, discrimination, poor access to health care, lack of resources and neglect. Thus it is also people who hold the potential to end the pandemic and create our first AIDS free generation in nearly forty years.