A Multimedia Exhibit on Living With AIDS

Some are angry, some are hopeful, some are sad, and some are confused, but the voices--all of them--are strong.

“It’s not normal to be in your early 40s and to have known so many people who have died,” says one man with AIDS, who stopped counting after 20 of his friends had died from the disease.

“I found a lot of power I never thought I had,” says another man, who spent weeks in a coma while fighting AIDS. “I never got into that ‘I feel sorry for myself’ syndrome.”

The voices, compiled on a 40-minute tape, resonate in the Pierce College Art Gallery, where thoughts, photographs and possessions of people with AIDS are displayed in a multimedia exhibit titled “Living With AIDS--A Collaborative Reflection.”

The show, which features the work of eight artists and is open through Feb. 8, provides a powerful yet unsentimental look at how the disease has affected individuals.

“Statistics are important so you can get a grip on the scope of the epidemic, but there’s the human side we need to deal with,” said Kim Abeles, one of the show’s coordinators. “We all need to deal with death and the way we treat people who are ill.”

Abeles built the show’s centerpiece, a glass-topped table that displays personal effects of people with AIDS. The items, embedded in purple satin, include a miniature globe, a graduation cap, a wedding portrait, a Purple Heart and a rejection letter from the Social Security Administration for Supplemental Security Income.

The table is surrounded by six different chairs, all painted purple and surfaced with felt, where viewers are encouraged to sit. Hovering above is a purple chiffon chair with a metal frame. The floating chair, Abeles said, represents the soul. “It’s some sort of space between living and dying,” she said.

Out of speakers on the ceiling, come the voices of people with AIDs. The interviews chronicle, with humor and anger, their first moments after being diagnosed, their thoughts about death and the reactions of their friends.

“People think of AIDS as victimization--the idea that these people are helpless--but a lot them lead fairly normal lives,” Abeles said.

Many don’t, however, and the exhibit also reveals the disgust and terror of those stricken in the prime of their lives.

One is a woman named Delta, who is photographed in a room full of stuffed animals sitting on a pull-out sofa bed between her two young daughters. The woman, about 35 years old, looks furious. “How can this be happening to me?” she seems to be saying. “I still have a lot left to do.”

Two sets of self-portraits by men with AIDS also express sadness and confusion.

In a photo titled “Torn Apart and Isolated,” Wade Phillip Wenthur appears in four overlapping exposures, but much of his head is cropped off.

“On the one hand, I felt the need to tell my friend of my illness,” Wenthur says, in a statement accompanying his photos. “On the other hand, I faced the prospect of rejection.”

While primarily chronicling the human side of AIDS, the show also explores the politics of the disease.

A slide show expresses what one artist considers the media’s depersonalization of AIDS, with images such as newspaper headlines, Ronald Reagan and a mournful Latino family set against the American flag. The slide show is accompanied by mirrors on surrounding walls “so the viewer can interact” with the piece, Abeles said.

Political commentary also is offered in a series of photographs called “Street Graphic Interventions.” The photos document the clandestine campaign of an activist group that stuck small posters throughout New York’s subway system, instructing people how to use condoms and clean drug paraphernalia. The posters were removed the next day by New York authorities.

One of the posters gives step-by-step instructions on how to clean a needle. It appears among bacon and eggs, fried chicken and an ice cream sandwich on an ad for Andrew’s Coffee Shops. “Put A Smile In Your Coffee Break,” the ad says.

“Living With AIDS--A Collaborative Reflection” will be on display through Feb. 8. The gallery is open noon to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 6 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, and 10 to 11:30 a.m. on Thursday. For information, call (818) 347-0551.