Note to Correspondents

Exhibition of Photos by African Women, Children Affected by HIV/AIDS

Opens at Headquarters on 17 November

 

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) is hosting an exhibition of more than 40 extraordinary photographs by South African women living with HIV and Mozambican children orphaned by AIDS.

A project of Los Angeles-based Venice Arts, the exhibition is entitled “The House Is Small but the Welcome Is Big”.  It opens formally at 6 p.m. on Tuesday 17 November, in the South Gallery of the Visitors Lobby at United Nations Headquarters.

Making statements at the opening will be Bertil Lindblad, Director of the UNAIDS New York Office, and Neal Baer, M.D., Emmy-nominated writer/executive producer of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and a co-founder of the project.  Also attending will be stars of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, including Christopher Meloni, Mariska Hargitay, Dann Florek, Richard Belzer, Ice-T, Stephanie March, BD Wong and Tamara Tunie.

The name of the project comes from one of the photographs, taken by 28-year-old Funeka Nceke of Cape Town, South Africa.  On the wall of her friend's home hangs an embroidered cloth that reads, “The House Is Small but the Welcome Is Big”.

Living with her two children and two other family members in a shack with no electricity or running water, Funeka learned she was HIV-positive in 2003.  That and other compelling stories convey the daily lives of 15 women and 18 children who face tremendous challenges because of HIV/AIDS.

“HIV is about everyone.  It is not about ‘us versus them’.  There is no ‘them’ -- only ‘us’, together,” says United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The exhibition is sponsored by UNAIDS and Venice Arts.  UNAIDS is an innovative joint venture of the United Nations family, bringing together the efforts and resources of 10 of the Organization’s bodies in response to AIDS so as to help the world prevent new HIV infections, care for people living with the AIDS-causing virus and mitigate the impact of the epidemic.  Venice Arts is a non-profit organization running innovative programmes in documentary photography, filmmaking and digital media/arts since 1993.

For more information on this exhibit, contact Richard Leonard, UNAIDS New York Office, tel: +1 646 666 8009, e-mail: leonardr@unaids.org; or Lynn Warshafsky, Venice Arts, Los Angeles, tel: +1 310 578-1745, e-mail: lynn@venice-arts.org.  For more information on United Nations exhibitions, call Jan Arnesen at +1 212 963 8531, Liza Wichmann at +1 212 963 0089; e-mail: arnesen@un.org or wichmann@un.org.

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For information media • not an official record