An HIV/AIDS-themed exhibit on display through the Church Health Center is more than a document of a disease.
It is a reminder of the human struggle at the core of the pandemic: a South African boy uncertain he would see his 7th birthday; a Thai girl forced into the country's sex trade after answering a job to wash dishes.
Titled "30 Years/30 Lives," the photographic exhibit profiles 30 people from the United States, South Africa, Mexico and Thailand who have been affected by the virus.
The exhibition also marks the 30 years since the first AIDS cases were reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on June 5, 1981.
The photographer, Kimberly Vrudny, is a theology professor and project director for HIV/AIDS initiatives at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. She will give a 4 p.m. lecture today at the Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare Center of Excellence in Faith and Health at Methodist University Hospital, 1265 Union, followed by a 5:30 p.m. artist's reception at Church Health Center Wellness, 1115 Union.
"They are portraits of individual lives that give dimension and story to the statistics that can easily overwhelm," Vrudny has said of her project. "I recognized that we all as a human community are diminished when so many are struggling to survive. I learned from them more about what it is to be human."
The nationally touring exhibit will run simultaneously through July 31 at three locations, according to Church Health Reader managing editor Rachel Thompson, who organized the local showing with the idea that people can walk from one venue to the next, all in close proximity.
The Church Health Center Wellness has 12 of the photos, the Center of Excellence in Faith and Health has 12, and a final six are at St. John's United Methodist Church, 1207 Peabody.
Thompson says the show not only serves to remind that HIV/AIDS is still with us but how treatment and awareness have changed, in many cases for the better.
"That doesn't mean we're at a point where we can ignore it or not recognize the power it has, especially in developing countries," he said.
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