Bloodline: Aids and Family

Bloodline: AIDS and Family

The art center’s display of Kristen Ashburn, a documentary photographer, brings many to thought. How does this affect me, society, and the future? The artistic value of every emotion captured in the man y photos of families in Africa. These pictures pour emotion into the many viewing students. No one can walk out of the art center without being touched deeply by the heartbreaking display. After leaving one must imagine, what if this where me? What if my mother was dying or my brother or myself? Even though we pretend that this does not have anything to do with us; we know that HIV/AIDS can affect anyone. All the pictures are very touching and passionate, however, the three photos that touch me the most where the one with a lady nursing her baby, one with the little boy and his mother, and the one with the grave plots.

The photo of the women breast-feeding her baby, she looks away in a daze. She looks lost and lonely as if there is no one to save her. Feelings of forgotten love and acceptance seem to float around. It is hard to imagine how to go on knowing that there is no way to help your child or yourself because you have no money. She looks like she wants to cry, like she has no life to give to the small almost lifeless child. I bet she wonders if she will even be there for her child tomorrow. Maybe the father died and she has nothing but that baby. Maybe she feels powerless and out of hope. She knows that she will die but she does not know when. It must be torture to wait for death to come for you. Even then I begin to think she is strong because she still holds on to her baby and tries to live and help him live. She does not just give up and wait to die.

The photo of the little girl and her dying mother is so sad. To think as a small child watching your mother dying this is awful. A helpless mother lying in the bed drifting away slowly wishing she could be there for that little girl. AIDS has taken so many parents and it still continues today. Pain in this mother’s eyes strikes any chance for the girls comfort. Instead she will wait patiently for the time to come to say bye. This photo represents the many children without any parents because of the HIV and AIDS pandemic. This also leaves no one to care for them as they become more ill over time. What will do when the future as all died from AIDS?

The third picture hurts most because they are prepared for