A
powerful new book of unique photographic portraits of AIDS activists
from around the world, including members of ACT UP (The AIDS Coalition
to Unleash Power) chapters in the United States and Europe, has just
been published. the AIDS activist project is a 28-year project by veteran photographer and AIDS activist Bill Bytsura.
“the AIDS activist project is a memorial to
the brave men and women who struggled and died while fighting the
epidemic and government neglect,” Bill Bytsura said. “But this book is
also a renewed call to action, because the AIDS epidemic is not over.
Infection rates are rising again, and the Trump Administration, like
Reagan and Bush, is ignoring the dangers.”
From
1989 to 1998, Bytsura photographed AIDS activists from around the
globe, beginning with members of the New York City chapter of ACT UP,
and branching out to capture members of other ACT UP chapters in San
Francisco, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Atlanta, Miami and Puerto Rico.
Bytsura subsequently traveled to AIDS conferences in Europe to
photograph ACT UP members and other AIDS activists from Amsterdam,
Berlin and Paris.
the AIDS activist project features a foreword
by David France, the Academy Award-nominated director of the 2012
documentary “How to Survive a Plague,” and author of the award-winning
2016 companion book of the same name.
The genesis for the AIDS activist project came
when Bytsura, a longtime New Yorker, lost his life partner Randy
Northup to AIDS in 1989. Filled with anger and helplessness, Bytsura
attended an ACT UP/NY meeting. Eventually, he channeled his grief into
protests and began photographing the group’s raucous street
demonstrations. During that time, Bytsura conceived the idea for the AIDS activist project.
“I saw ACT UP members as brave people taking a stand,” Bytsura recalled,
“but the public and media saw them only as sinners, lawbreakers and
disease carriers. My goal was to photograph a series of studio portraits
of these warriors, to show the world their heroic and mournful sides.”
the AIDS activist project book also includes
candid shots of AIDS activists at picket lines across the nation, in
well-orchestrated protests. Bytsura's images capture the resistance of
activists that drew national attention, forcing the medical
establishment and government to act — and, ultimately, elicited empathy
from the public at large.
Bytsura’s complete collection of 225 photographic portraits and original
negatives, plus the activists’ personal statements, are now archived at
Fales Library at New York University, as part of The Downtown
Collection.