Scientific advances in recent decades have meant that HIV and AIDS are no longer a death sentence. People with AIDS are living longer today than ever before, and by 2015 half the people in the U.S. with HIV or AIDS will be 50 or older.
© 2011 Art Center College of Design/Dlugolecki Photography (“The Greying of AIDS Exhibition”)
A current Illustration Department/Designmatters student project is underway examining the graying of AIDS. It is being conducted as a corollary to the current Williamson exhibition, Graphic Intervention, and is on display through Sunday.
The Pasadena Weekly has a wonderful article today on the topic. Carl Kozlowski writes:
In an attempt to educate the public about this increasingly important issue for the nation’s senior community, Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design presents “The Graying of AIDS Exhibition: Off the Wall,” part of the larger “Graphic Intervention: 25 Years of International AIDS Awareness Posters” exhibit at the college’s Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery through Sunday.
“Our project tries to address ageism and living with HIV/AIDS among older adults,” says Brian Rea, an instructor with the Art Center’s illustration department who teaches the school’s Off the Wall installation-art course. “Often they’re seen as statistics, so the students really took it upon themselves to address that, and take the most powerful things being said and make them the most accessible for those who might view the piece.”
Rea first learned of the project after being approached by Art Center’s Educational Department, which aligns students and faculty with outside organizations to produce art and design that can affect social change. Rea’s Off the Wall course, housed in the Illustration Department, teaches experimental image-making and installation work as they apply to illustration and design.
Read more: The Graying of AIDS: Art Center exhibit focuses on America’s largest group of people living with HIV/AIDS
