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Andrew Hill, AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, San Francisco .jpg

AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, San Francisco
1990
Photograph
​£300 - all profits to be donated to Starfish Greathearts Foundation 
 
This photograph is of a demonstration in San Francisco by the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP). Andrew took this on Kodachome colour 35mm slide film, with a wide angle lens to fit in the large crowd. This was the "Gay Pride" march after the World AIDS Conference. The San Francisco Police Department deployed riot police to shut down some of the demonstrations, with batons, police horses and many arrests. There were no effective treatments for HIV back then, and people living with HIV were doing everything they could to push the US government to search for new treatments. The demonstrators had placards saying "Silence = death" - they were not going down without a fight. Tragically, most people with HIV in 1990 would have died before effective treatment was developed. In Andrew's medical career, he has seen HIV turn from a death sentence into a treatable condition. In 2024, people can have a normal lifespan if they are tested early and take one tablet of effective treatment per day. However these early demonstrations really helped to drive the research to overcome HIV, and Andrew still remembers the energy of these 
demonstrations, 34 years later.

ANDREW HILL 

Andrew worked as a photo-journalist in the 1990s, travelling widely and having pictures published in the Guardian, Observer and Independent. He wanted to show the reality of situations, letting people tell their own stories. Andrew was also training in HIV medicine, and this has been his career since then. Travelling through Africa, Andrew saw the beginnings of the HIV epidemic. 41 million people have died from HIV so far, with a new HIV infection every 24 seconds somewhere in the world. Currently he works a lot on media stories about medicine. Often the most powerful stories can be told around a single person with a disease who needs to be treated. People can connect emotionally to these stories, and it helps in campaigns to increase access to essential medicines. We see this happening for many different diseases: HIV, COVID, cancer and cystic fibrosis.

To purchase this artwork please email andrewhillmv@gmail.com

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