HISTORIAS POSITIVAS

Famed South African photographer Gideon Mendel spearheaded Historias Positivas, which showcases the lives of fourteen people, all citizens of Mexico, living with HIV/AIDS. Gideon Mendel, one of the foremost chroniclers of the global AIDS epidemic, contributed portraits of all the participants and directed the project. He worked alongside Alejandro Brito Lemus, an accomplished AIDS activist, writer, and director of Letra S, a community-based organization that focuses on AIDS, culture, and everyday life in Mexico’s capital.

Together they organized, interviewed, and trained prospective individuals in a June 2008 workshop. The goal was to demonstrate how HIV-positive stories are changing in this corner of Latin America, where many lives have been prolonged by advanced drug therapies and where oppressive stigma is maybe, just maybe, beginning to lift.

Facing Gideon Mendel’s camera, and picking up their own, the participants revealed themselves as strong men and women, as creative forces, and as agents for change.

“Historias Positivas will move out into the Mexican landscape, with major help from Letra S and a team of UCLA undergraduates who are studying in Mexico. Letra S gets its name from all the Spanish words associated with the letter S, like semen, salud, and SIDA. As Historias Positivas tours Mexico, it will be renamed Una Mirada Positiva.”