Positive Lives
Positive Responses to HIV

Positive Lives is a unique global project that supports those living with HIV/AIDS and challenges the stigma and prejudices they face.

By using photography and personal testimonies, Positive Lives confronts the attitudes and opinions at the root of the negative preconceptions surrounding HIV/AIDS. 

Our ongoing partnerships and work with internationally-acclaimed photographers highlight the unfair treatment, struggle and challenges that people living with HIV/AIDS face on a daily basis.

We work with organisations and groups around the globe in order to create community education programmes, exhibitions and media events - which underline the social and emotional impact that the global HIV/AIDS epidemic is having upon individuals and society as a whole.

We are a counterbalance to the negative portrayals, the ignorance and the lack of understanding that are at the core of the shame and discrimination that often surrounds those living with HIV/AIDS.

We exist to celebrate the hopes and aspirations of individuals living with HIV and their will to survive.

“Positive Lives represents one of the first and most original efforts to connect artistic imagination with photo advocacy.”
Ida Susser, PhD - Professor of Anthropology and author

Positive Lives continues to develop through continued commissioning of images from award-winning photographers - and by building effective partnerships with global, regional and local organisations.

Our project works with media partners to bring initiatives such as access to treatment and the plight of marginalised and vulnerable groups to the attention of local & national media - as well as to decision-makers in health and education policy, social and economic development and key influential players in government and administration.

The virus does not discriminate - HIV affects us all.

"We have developed immunity to the anonymous statistics of this epidemic, but the people who have given their faces to these stories have something to say. They are telling us what they have learned about survival.  The pictures are done but the story is not ended."
Stephen Mayes, Co-founder of Positive Lives, Secretary to the World Press Photo competition and Director of the Art + Commerce Image Archive

News

World AIDS Day 2008

1st December 2008:

The Positive Lives exhibition tour in The Gambia and Benin coincides with World AIDS Day - see below and 'exhibitions and tours' for more information.

Pep Bonet created the new series of Positive Lives images and stories from Honduras earlier this year. His agency Noor is screening his new feature from Honduras - Forced Identity - on World AIDS Day, 1 December 2008, at 'La Misericordia' in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. Visit the 'Noor' website for more details

For World AIDS Day 2008 one of our Global Partners, the Levi Strauss Foundation, has devised an online arcade game which highlights various issues around HIV/AIDS, and acknowledges its support for the work of Positive Lives - and provides copies of the Positive Lives book as prizes to the most successful players. Link to Levi Strauss Foundation retro arcade game

Please visit the Positive Lives blog for links to the game in 6 other languages. Feel free to add links to the game to your website.

Positive Lives on  Flickr

You can now see Positive Lives on Flickr. Please visit and see more of what we do, you can also read the comments left by visitors to the exhibitions.

Fritz Hoffmann recently wrote (after seeing the Positive Lives Flickr pages)  "I visited the Flickr site and was very, VERY happy to see that the exhibition was toured extensively in China; especially to the smaller cities where I believe education is least available. Cheers to you all!"

Positive Lives Blog

Please visit the NEW Positive Lives Blog

Liberia, The Gambia, and Benin

We are pleased to announce that from October to December 2008 UNHCR (United Nations Refugee Agency) is organizing a tour of the UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) - UNHCR/Positive Lives exhibition in west Africa. There will be activities accompanying the exhibition.

Positive Lives currently has projects underway in Egypt and is continuing its work with UNHCR in refugee camps in Africa.

Honduras - new photographs by Pep Bonet (Noor)

Images from the heart of the Honduran communities vulnerable to HIV/AIDS; these stories are developed in partnership with Ayuda en Acción - and launch our new projects in the region. See 'Global Reach' (Americas) for details. The Honduras photographs can also be seen within the Issues section.

For more information on our projects please visit our 'About Us' and 'Exhibitions' pages