Photos show off AIDS activism

If one picture can speak a thousand words, Chuck Stallard hopes a whole gallery will be enough to spread the word.

On display in Kaufman Hall through March 14, Stallard’s photographs show the history of AIDS activism in Los Angeles. The exhibit, “Silence = Death: Los Angeles AIDS Activism 1987-2007,” focuses specifically on the actions of the L.A. chapter of the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power, referred to as “ACT UP.”

“It was a different time,” said Stallard, a former member of ACT UP Los Angeles. “They didn’t just write letters and make phone calls; they actually went out to places and made their presence known with protests.”

In the height of ACT UP’s success in Los Angeles, the organization protested AIDS drug policies outside the federal building in Westwood, negotiated the construction of an AIDS ward in the L.A. county hospital, and used art and dramatic expression to expose AIDS policies. Stallard’s photographs give an intimate look into the era of activism.

“The thing that excites me about this exhibition is that it demonstrates the extent to which L.A. has been at the heart of the storm, that activists in Los Angeles have been some of the most creative participants to stop the movement in the spread of HIV and to get a governmental response at the highest level,” said world arts and cultures Professor David Gere, who teaches a class called “Make Art/Stop AIDS,” which encourages students to get involved in arts as a way to fight AIDS.

Stuart Timmons, the curator for the exhibit who also recently wrote a history of L.A. gay activism called “Gay L.A.,” interviewed 20 ACT UP members for the captions. With the stories accompanying Stallard’s action shots, the exhibit gives a personal look at AIDS activism.

“(Stallard) was always able to … get really close and that was how he was able to succeed,” Timmons said. “Like the best of the World War II photographers, he captured battle.”

Stallard attended nearly every ACT UP event for the years he was involved in the group. He hopes that these action shots contribute to a more complete history of AIDS activism.

“I really wanted to try and make as complete a record as I could make and I had to dedicate a lot of time to it to make the compilation great,” Stallard said.

Stallard and Timmons want the exhibit to inspire students to get involved in AIDS activism.

“The people who founded ACT UP are all in their 50s and older now by and large, but the issues for younger people are more urgent than ever in many ways,” Timmons said. “I think that UCLA students, their best work, their best opportunity, is to be in touch with their contemporaries and their generation because part of what AIDS is dealing with is the most personal possible parts of your life: sexuality and culture. Every generation has to speak its own language for that and can only communicate effectively in that language.”

Gere sees UCLA students committed to advancing AIDS activism every day.

“I learn from my students all the time about what it means to take risks,” Gere said. “Many young students, undergraduates and graduate students here at UCLA, are expressing concerns not only for themselves but also for people altruistically on the other side of the world.”

In Gere’s course last quarter, he saw students march from the UCLA Hammer Museum to the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in pouring rain while holding hands and chanting to raise awareness for AIDS. Other groups on campus, such as Dance Marathon and the AIDS Ambassadors, also set out to raise money for AIDS programs.

“I’m continually inspired by what students are capable of,” Gere said. “I don’t think it’s necessary to be HIV positive to care about this epidemic. … All that you need is to be someone who cares about other human beings.”

With Stallard’s photographs, this kind of caring is at the heart of the exhibit and Timmons argues that this caring will allow the story of AIDS activism to continue.

“Social problems are never going to go away,” Timmons said. “We really need to have people stand up, get involved and fight back.”

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