An exhibition launched by the Global Fund last week captures the transformative power of AIDS treatment through a collection of powerful photographs and video essays. To create “Access To Life”, photographers traveled to nine countries to document the experiences of thirty AIDS patients before and after they began antiretroviral treatment. The result is an intimate look at what is called “the Lazarus effect” in global health circles: after four months, patients once on their deathbeds look healthy and strong and have resumed their roles in their families and communities. Photos capture the physical changes (in Haiti, photographer Jonas Bendiksen used a Polaroid camera to document daily improvements) while interviews and film cover the emotional transformations. The videos especially are a testament to the wider impact wrought by AIDS – interviews with families and neighbors chronicle the heavy toll AIDS is taking on families, communities and businesses across the world.

These stories bring life to the statistics that we here at ONE know well: in poor and low and middle-income countries, nearly three million people are on life-saving antiretroviral treatment. This is no small feat, especially in Africa, where only a few years ago an AIDS diagnosis was a death sentence. Even once drug prices were brought down only 36 cents a day, critics still argued that expanding access to ARVs was impossible in Africa because the drugs were still too expensive, the infrastructure to deliver them was not there and the regimen was too complicated. Today, over 2 million Africans are on treatment, proving that in the poorest of settings, access to life will succeed. This exhibit puts some faces behind those numbers, reminding us why we need to keep fighting until access to these life-saving medications is universal.

Access To Life is on view at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in DC from June 14 to July 20, 2008 The exhibition will then travel to Mexico City, Paris, London, Berlin, and Rome throughout 2008 and 2009.

-Nora Coghlan