World AIDS Day: 24 Hours Of Design -- and Determination

There's been a lot of talk lately about the strides being made against HIV/AIDS. During a speech at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on November 8, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even went so far as to proclaim the possibility of an "AIDS-free generation" with "a global plan for eliminating new infections among children by 2015."

Although the end of AIDS isn't here yet, the statistics aren't nearly as gruesome as they were at the start of the millennium, thanks to programs such as PEPFAR (The U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), launched in 2004 to provide life-saving antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) to infected people worldwide. As The Wall Street Journal recently reported, ARVs "can not only restore HIV-infected people to health but also make them far less infectious" -- up to 96% so, although prevention still needs to be stressed. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) says that as of 2009, 5.2 million people in low- and middle-income countries had access to antiretroviral treatment, up from 700,000 in 2004. The result: worldwide, new HIV infections have reduced by nearly 20% in the past 10 years.

This is all good news, but that doesn't mean we're ready to forget about the epidemic and move on -- which is why this year's World AIDS Day (WAD) is as important as the first time the day was observed back in 1995. You don't have to be a scientist or doctor or missionary or politician to make a difference in the fight; you can drink (RED) branded Belvedere vodka, buy a limited-edition Bugaboo stroller, head down to city hall for your mayor's WAD proclamation, join an advocacy group such as ONE, donate to a local AIDS charity or one of the stalwarts such as the Elton John AIDS Foundation (EJAF), or hold a vigil at your church, synagogue or mosque. Sometimes, though, the easiest -- and perhaps most important -- thing to do is to simply remember.

One Atlanta museum is doing just that -- by opening its doors for 24 hours straight on December 1st to commemorate World AIDS Day with a lineup of cultural activities and exhibits that includes Graphic Intervention: 25 Years of International AIDS Posters and selected panels from The NAMES Project Foundation's AIDS Memorial Quilt.

A visitor peruses AIDS posters at Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA). Photo credit: Carrie Whitney/PennHouse Productions.

"With two exhibitions that are AIDS-related, we're dedicated to raising awareness and commemorating World AIDS Day," says Laura Flusche, Associate Director at Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA).

As for the planned activities, which begin at midnight Wednesday and run through 11:59 PM Thursday, Flusche says the day's events range from a pre-breakfast screening of the Academy Award-winning 1989 documentary Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, a performance by the Georgia State Opera, and poetry readings by the Atlanta Queer Literary Festival, to a lecture by a prominent Emory doctor, a family quilting craft project, and a routine from the Zoetic Dance troupe.

"Design is a broad field and it affects our everyday lives in such a significant way, we don't like to place boundaries on it," Flusche says.

She acknowledges that Atlanta's place in the history of AIDS, which first surfaced in he US in 1981, is crucial. Although it ranks 8th in HIV-infection rates among US metropolitan areas, "Atlanta was one of the most severely AIDS-affected cities, especially in the 1980s," says Flusche.

Atlanta was the first city to host the International AIDS Conference in 1985 and, as home of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), the city has been a leader in raising and keeping awareness about prevention and treatment of the disease.

"A huge percentage of young people don't even know about The Quilt or that it is housed in Atlanta," Flusche says. "The younger generations aren't as AIDS-aware, so there's the desire to commemorate the loved ones who were lost, but also to continue the struggle and the fight."

 

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