Living with AIDS, album I

In the late 1980s, Fiona Clark undertook a collaborative project with four New Zealanders who were diagnosed with HIV. The resulting work, Living with AIDS, was displayed in two albums in an exhibition called AIDS NOW at the Dowse Art Gallery in Lower Hutt in 1988, alongside two visitors’ books which were filled with comments, both positive and negative. The original albums and comments books are now held by Te Papa.

AIDS hit the world in the early 1980s causing widespread fear and confusion (the HIV virus was only identified in 1985). In New Zealand the impact of HIV/AIDS coincided with Homosexual Law Reform debates (1985/86). As men who had sex with men were disproportionately affected by the disease in its early years, public debate was particularly emotional and visceral at that time.

Clark’s photographs provided a humane insight into everyday life for four New Zealanders living with HIV/AIDS between 1986 and 1988. The images were taken in collaboration with the individuals she photographed: Peter Warren, Grant Cotter, Alastair Hall, and Sherrin English. All had been diagnosed HIV-positive. The three men did not survive to see the arrival of life-changing HIV antiretroviral medications in the mid-1990s. Sherrin English had been employed as a sex-worker in Asia and was an IV drug-user. She was diagnosed with HIV, but was later was found to have been misdiagnosed.

Many of the photographs do not show their faces as, apart from Peter Warren, they didn’t wish to be publicly identified given the stigma and discrimination they experienced. The photographs are accompanied by the participants’ handwritten personal, poetic and philosophical reflections.

The albums are powerful and moving testaments to personal tragedy, discrimination, assertion of gay (and human) rights, love and care. They encapsulate a particular moment in the history of the gay community in New Zealand – a time when there was considerable hysteria and misunderstanding about AIDS, and when diagnosis was often equivalent to a death sentence. AIDS was a highly political topic for many in the gay community for it was often associated with moral judgements and homophobia.

Media headlines at the time were not always accurate. Some people thought that touching someone with HIV/AIDS could spread the virus. There was general confusion about the disease and what it meant for those who had it.

When Fiona Clark was interviewed 30 years later she recalled that Peter Warren ‘knew he would die probably. He hoped he would live to see the exhibition. That was one of his things - to leave that as his legacy. So his face is there, the same as his partner Vince. They were extraordinary people, both extraordinary men - to actually stand up at that time.’

One of the most important images of Peter is of him and his dog outside a dairy. Clark recalled that ‘the dairy owner had heard he was HIV-positive and had refused to serve him. So Peter and Vince had gone to the dairy and said, ‘Just because he picks up the milk and opens the fridge, doesn't mean you are going to get HIV.’’

‘People were really scared of Peter in that street… He was very, very ill… People would yell at him, ‘Get out, get out, you can't come in here, you're dirty.’’

Grant Cotter faced similar experiences. Clark recalled ‘he was really being hounded. He'd lost his flat…. Someone around him had told his landlord…. He really was very young and he had just come out and he'd got HIV…. He felt he hadn't had an opportunity to find out who he was in life – and he struggled with that.’

Alastair Hall was the third man Clark photographed. He was devoted to educating people about the virus – ‘talking to groups, even talking to Doctors, putting a lot of energy into it, probably more than he should have.’

Clark's photographs were not exhibited on gallery walls. Instead they were presented in albums, on tables. Their pages could be turned by visitors, creating an intimate experience similar to looking through family photographs.

Herkt, D. (3 June 2018). Unseen albums document how Aids affected four New Zealanders in 1988. https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/life/104259409/unseen-albums-document-how-aids-affected-four-new-zealanders-in-1988

https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/history/hiv-and-aids-timeline