Special Mention 1
Being “positive” twenty years ago was certain to result in death. The gay community had to learn how to deal with it and, although so many people died, nobody knows yet why a few didn’t. Rejected by society because of their double condition (homosexual and hiv +) and even by the gay community, scared of being infected, these people had to hide. Even now it has been very difficult for me to find models who wanted to participate in the project: I had many interviews, and a final “no, thanks.. I don’t want to be visible”. In this series, the people in the group presented are hiv + and they don’t hide anymore. They fight for the hiv + people’s rights from different areas: gay activism, health or cultural. As they were the witnesses of what happened, I wanted to concentrate in the portraits on the intensity of their eyes and also on the condition of the skin were the illness was in some point in evidence. With the memories, against all odds, they openly look at us and say: “Yes, I am here… I am a survivor”.
Jose Manuel Alorda
