A Broken Landscape : HIV and AIDS in Africa

AIDS in Africa is an invisible, slow burning tragedy on a monumental scale. Worldwide, more than 30 million people are living with HIV. Of these over 22 million are are in sub-Saharan Africa. African nations are among the poorest on earth. Today, in addition to acute social and political problems, many now face the loss of immense numbers of people. In some big African cities more than a third of adults are HIV positive. As parents die, the growing number of orphans stretch the meagre resources of aunts, uncles and grandparents.

These photographs show the human dimensions of the epedemic and how it affects ordinary people in four sub-Saharan countries: Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and South Africa. They do not attempt to be comprehensive. They are my photographic response to an African tragedy, attempting to tell a story rarely told in a visual way.

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Beside documenting the lives of families hit by the illness these images look at the work being done by many dedicated local people-some of whom have the disease-to combat the problem through education and care. In Africa, as elsewhere, people with HIV and AIDS are starting to mobilise, to challenge prejudices and help their communities fight the virus. Among the obstacles they face are lack of education, poor primary health care, the social dislocation caused by migrant labour and women's low position-all of which help to spread the disease.

Despite the horrifying statistics, the true face of HIV in Africa is little known. It is all too easy to depict the drama of death; it is far harder to show the quiet suffering of communities that will never be the same again.

Acknowledgements This body of work which has been produced over the past seven years could never have been achieved without substantial support and encouragement from numerous organisations and individuals, both in the UK and Africa.
I owe a huge debt to Positive Lives which inspired me start working in this area and my agency Network Photographers and its director Neil Burgess who has solidly supported my work on this subject over the years. The Eugene Smith Award for Humanistic Photography funded the production of much of this work.
Christian Aid helped facilitate my recent trip to Ndola and along with the Terence Higgins Trust has sponsored this exhibition. I would also like to thank Dr Ros Coleman, Tim Manchester, Mitchell Warren, PSI (Population Services International), CAFOD, Dr Aschwanden, Captain Dean Pallant, Captain Lena Jwili, Sister Margaret, Lyndall Stein and Colin Jacobsen.
I would also like to thank the many people in Africa who allowed me to photograph their lives with such an open and generous spirit.

This exhibition has been produced with the support of L'Express