Health experts and artists discussed the need to change the narrative in popular media around HIV/AIDS to avoid stigma and provide true representation in a panel last Friday hosted by Harvard Medical School in recognition of World AIDS Day.
The panel, titled “Portraying AIDS in the Media: How Far Have We Come?”, was sponsored by HMS’ Media, Medicine, and Health program and moderated by physician and award-winning showrunner Neal Baer. The event featured guests actress Gloria Reuben, director Paris K.C. Barclay ’79, artist Kia LaBeija, Yale School of Public Health professor Gregg Gonsalves, and HMS professor Joia S. Mukherjee.
To open the discussion, Gonsalves, who studies epidemiology, showed an advertisement for an HIV drug, Dovato. The ad depicted people with HIV living a happy life while using the medication. Despite the commercial’s joyful appearance, Gonsalves and the other panelists agreed that these media portrayals erase the complexity of HIV/AIDS.
“We have a whole set of issues that we need to deal with, that are obscured by this happy-clappy version of the HIV epidemic that is perpetuated night after night on network television,” Gonsalves said.
“How do we build a critical media discourse about the AIDS epidemic moving forward?” he added. “We didn’t learn the lesson of HIV, we didn’t learn the lesson of Covid, we don’t get three strikes. Three strikes, and we’re out.”
To demonstrate the necessity of “talking, moving, telling your story, getting out there,” Barclay referenced “Pedro,” a film he co-wrote in 2008 about Cuban American television personality Pedro Zamora who died from complications due to AIDS.
Barclay retold Zamora’s story to prove that “even one person who is telling their truth can make some change,” and used the film as a critique against the narrative of silence around Zamora’s illness and the “lie of reality coverage.”
“I wanted to debunk a little bit of what they had done in the real world, which is to disguise and sanitize his story,” Barclay said. “They didn’t show how ill he was.”
Mukherjee, an associate professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at the Medical School, also touched on the power of documentaries in illustrating HIV/AIDS.
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“That’s what we’re fighting for — to tell those stories in patients’ own words,” she said.
Reuben, an Emmy Award-nominated actress, said she aimed to portray the stigma faced by individuals living with HIV when she played Jeanie, an HIV-positive character in the popular television series “ER.”
Reuben explained that depicting a character who felt shame and embarrassment from testing HIV-positive helped show the broader stigma in society faced by individuals living with HIV.
“The shame, the secrecy, and stigma. Those are killers,” Reuben said.
She added that combating the stigma of living with HIV is critical to saving the lives of individuals who fear seeking treatment out of stigma — something that can only be accomplished through “the awareness, the access, and the treatment,” Reuben said.
LaBeija, an artist, storyteller, and New York native, spoke firsthand about the need for representation in the media to truly depict the experience of HIV. She developed HIV through perinatal transmission from her mother and has been living with HIV her entire life.
As a long-term survivor of HIV, LaBeija said, her struggle with the illness was “a completely different experience” compared to those who acquired it later in life.
“Sometimes when I sit in rooms with other people living with HIV, I feel a little isolated,” LaBeija said.
As she grew older, LaBeija met others who were similarly diagnosed with HIV perinatally — interactions, she said, “blew my mind.”
“To feel that, my isolation and my grief, and all that time that I felt alone — there were so many others, just like me,” LaBeija said, adding that the experience made clear to her that shifts in the narrative around HIV/AIDS were necessary.
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LaBeija referenced the more than 14,000 children born HIV-positive from the late 1970s to early 1990s, underscoring the importance of telling these stories.
“There are way less babies that are born with HIV, which is beautiful and a miracle,” LaBeija said. “But those babies that were born, those babies that are not here, they’re still stories that are just completely lost.”
LaBeija said telling her story and fighting for the representation of people who are HIV-positive is critical to ensure support and inclusion of individuals living with the illness.
“If you don’t tell your story, someone else will tell it and they’ll tell it wrong,” she said, citing a proverb she heard early in her life.
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The new podcast The Professor opens with a dawn raid. In 2018, officers from the British police and the Italian Carabinieri entered the London home of William Veres, an Anglo-Hungarian art dealer whom they believed to be a leading figure in a pan-European art smuggling ring. Veres and his co-conspirators are alleged to have links to the Italian mafia and to have stolen €40mn worth of art and antiquities. Following the raid, in which police removed a marble bust and hundreds of ancient coins, Veres was charged with money laundering, forgery, wire fraud and conspiracy. If convicted, he faces a jail term of up to 20 years. He maintains his innocence.
I had imagined that The Professor — the title comes from the nickname given to Veres by his art-world contemporaries in honour of his knowledge of historical coins — would be an investigation into the veracity of those charges. The reality is rather knottier. Veres isn’t just the main character in this series but its principal collaborator as it follows him in his quest to avoid going to jail.
We learn how Veres struck a deal with Italy’s anti-mafia police: using his contacts in the art world, he would help them locate one of Italy’s lost treasures, Caravaggio’s “Nativity with St Francis and St Lawrence”. The painting, which is worth at least $20mn, was stolen from a church in Palermo in 1969, cut out of its frame under cover of night. Rumours swirl as to its whereabouts — some say it has been eaten by rats, others that it was cut up into smaller paintings by a Swiss art dealer — but more than 50 years later, Italian police are none the wiser, hence their reported deal with Veres. If he can find it, they will put in a good word with prosecutors.
It’s a hell of a story, deftly told by host Simon Willis, who hangs out at Veres’s flat and tags along with him on jaunts around Europe meeting various shadowy figures, among them art detectives, informants and retired police officers. In between, Willis attempts to explain the world of the Sicilian mafia, its links to the art market and to high-ranking politicians, including the former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. (Having heard all four episodes, I should warn you that a detailed diagram is needed to understand who’s who in the Italian underworld.)
If there are ethical questions raised by the creation of a podcast around a man accused, but not convicted, of smuggling art, Willis declines to address them, though he makes no secret of having been charmed by his subject. The hunt for the Caravaggio makes for an arresting premise, although there remains a hole in this story and that’s the character of Veres himself. Is he an art lover who has been terribly wronged or a villain going to extraordinary lengths to evade justice? Perhaps a second season is required to answer that.
If you like taking pictures of nature and posting them online, you can help conservationists track species distribution.
Here’s your chance to play juror and vote in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Awards 2023, a collection of 25 stunning photographs that shine a light on the beauty and brutality of the natural world.
Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London. Through the emotive power of photography, these inspiring and impactful images will surely create advocates for our planet. The Museum and an international judging panel had the unenviable task of selecting 100 finalists from almost 50,000 entries from 95 countries for the sixtieth Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award.
While the competition’s 2023 winners were announced in October, you still have the opportunity vote for your favorite from a selection of 25 memorable shortlisted images handpicked by the judges. All of the shortlisted images are standouts, but we’ve chosen some of our own favorites to maybe help you make your decision.
“Wildlife Photographer of the Year’s People’s Choice Award always offers an astounding selection of images, and this year is no different,” said Dr Douglas Gurr, Director of the Natural History Museum. “We invite the public to join the jury and vote for their favorite; whether breathtaking beauty or a powerful story, it’s sure to be a difficult decision!”
Daniel Dencescu/Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Daniel Dencescu spent hours following starlings around Rome and its suburbs, trying to locate the best communal roosting sites to capture their amazing aerial displays. He wasn’t disappointed when he saw them gather in a mesmerizing murmuration to form the shape of a colossal bird and managed to capture it.
Ofer Levy/Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Ofer Levy captures the tense standoff between a mudskipper defending its territory and an encroaching crab. In a threatening display, the mudskipper’s open mouth and raised dorsal fin are an attempt to look more scary. However, the crab seems undeterred and it looks as though neither party is backing down.
Andy Parkinson/Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Love is love, and that includes animal love. Here, two courting mountain hares touch noses in Scotland’s Monadhliath Mountains. Andy Parkinson has been photographing the hares in the region for 15 years, but he’s never witnessed this type of affection before. Normally, the female spurns the male’s advances by pulling out some explosive boxing moves.
Axel Gomille/Wildlife Photographer of the Year
The Ethiopian wolf is the rarest dog species in the world, with only a few hundred left. Axel Gomille managed to capture one resting among the highland vegetation of Ethiopia’s Bale Mountains National Park, the summer greens and blues providing the perfect backdrop for the chestnut-colored wolf.
You can vote online for your favorite Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Awards 2023 image here. Voting is open until the 31st of January, 2024. The winner and four runners-up will be announced on the 7th of February, 2024.
Take a look through our gallery of all 25 photographs and make your pick.
Source: National History Museum
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Louisville native Kaitlyn Hubert opened Pelo West in downtown Louisville this weekend. The new luxury spa is located on the 17th floor of the Galt House.
The spa has four treatment rooms, including one for couples, three hair stations, manicure and pedicure areas, and saunas in the women’s and men’s changing areas.
“The support that we’ve gotten from the Galt house and from our friends and people in the community has been really, really awesome,” Hubert said. “And we’re just really happy to play a part in revitalizing downtown. This is super important to us.”
The comfortable yet upscale design is loosely inspired by a salon Hubert worked at in Manhattan.
“I’m so excited to have a wider range of services. We just wanted anyone who was coming to the hotel to be able to get all their services at one place book, multiple services with all of our awesome staff members,” Hubert said.
Hubert also says she is excited to welcome people for the 150th Kentucky Derby in May of 2024.
“They can come get their massage, get their facial, go right back to their room, shower; or shower and come up and get their hair done and makeup done,” she said.
Hubert supports several local artists, including Jason M. Lois, whose art hangs throughout the spa.
Pelo West is Kaitlyn’s third spa and salon in Kentucky. Pelo Beauty Collective includes locations in Middletown and Lexington.
Pelo West in the Galt House on Dec. 3, 2023. (WDRB photo)
“Being at the Galt house was super important to me because I grew up coming here. My family would bring me as like a little treat, you know, a little staycation and it was so majestic to me at the time and now having a spa inside of the Galt House is like, definitely full circle,” Hubert said.
Pelo West will be open Tuesday-Friday 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Saturday 8 AM-5 PM, and Sunday 8 a.m.-4 p.m. It is closed on Mondays.
Group and single discounts will be offered to those staying at the Galt House, as well as Louisville residents and downtown locals. It also offers e-gift cards.
Pelo West is on the 17th floor of the Galt House, which is located at 140 North 4th Street in downtown Louisville. Hubert is an Assumption High School graduate.
For more information on Pelo West, click here.
Copyright 2023 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.
John Bailey had a successful career in marketing packaged goods, but now that he’s retired, he’s found another calling.
“When people say ‘it’s beautiful,’ they’re making comments [like], ‘I love your art,’ I’m going really?” he said.
He began taking art classes at night while he worked, but since retiring in 2018, he has more time to pursue his hobby. It wasn’t until the third wave of the pandemic in 2021, when many were feeling isolated that Bailey decided to share his watercolours on Facebook.
“My intent wasn’t to sell my art, it was to post it,” he said. “To my surprise, I was getting hundreds of likes and lots of good comments, and that sort of spurred me on to do it.”
His work focuses on scenes from around the city.
“I started innocently with a statue nearby where I live, and to my surprise I got a request for a print almost immediately from someone who used to gather around that statue with her girlfriends.”
With each piece he’d share, JBailey began hearing countless stories.
“I walked by Ms. Kim’s depanneur regularly because I live near where she is. I took a picture of her watering the plants one morning, and again I did my ink and watercolour,” he said. “I posted the scene of Ms. Kim, and to my surprise, not only was there an outpouring of, ‘I love Ms. Kim, everyone knows Ms. Kim,’ but then, ‘Can I get a copy?”
With many neighbourhoods changing, Bailey is immortalizing memories for Montrealers through his art.
“The old abandoned factory down on St. Ambroise that has the little pink house on top, everyone talks about ‘la maison rose.’ I’ve sold quite a few copies but when I first posted it, again I thought, ‘I don’t think anyone is going to like this,’ but there was a lot of likes, and a lot of attachment from the neighbourhood, they better not tear it down, they better not build condos,” he said.
The reaction is what keeps him going.
“It made me think, ‘Oh there’s something here. What I’m doing here is more than just a nice drawing,'” he said.
He’s even gotten a like from a former Habs GM.
“Marc Bergevin, he liked it,” he said.
He sells his art to former Montrealers living elsewhere, but for those still in the city, he prefers to deliver the pieces himself.
“I’ve gotten a lot of joy in watching these people smile when they take it out of the envelope,” he said.
