After the fall of the Soviet Union, a wave of drug use swept over Russia, addicting hundreds of thousands of young people. With heroin injection came the spread of HIV, rapidly infecting more than 1 million Russians. Russia’s is among the world’s most rapidly expanding AIDS epidemics, and frequently, those infected are diagnosed too late to be saved.
Curator's Statement
Eight extraordinarily engaged artists from Magnum Photos have ventured far from home to visualize some of the external aspects of individual lives
marked by AIDS and its consequences. Supported by the Global Fund on the ground, Jonas Bendiksen, Jim Goldberg, Alex Majoli, Steve McCurry, Paolo Pellegrin, Gilles Peress, Eli Reed, and Larry Towell each embraced the responsibility to document with objectivity and compassion the role of medical intervention in the fight against a life-threatening illness. Their new work appears for the first time in Access to Life. These photographers interacted with many communities throughout around the world. Their connections extended beyond those directly suffering from AIDS, to include loved ones, children, parents, and literal families, no less than families of affinity and choice. In bringing all these people together for this project, Access to Life proposes that these citizens of nine separate countries are united across political and geographic borders by their common struggle to forestall mortality and to participate in global networks of compassion and solicitude.
One important goal of this exhibition is to recognize