Emily Bass

The story of America's unlikeliest, least-known, yet greatest achievement this millennium: containing AIDS in Africa. As of 2003, there were nearly 27 million men, women, and children suffering from AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. Today that number has been reduced by more than half. The number of people with access to antiretroviral drugs--a treatment which renders AIDS survivable rather than fatal--has gone from around 50,000 to more than 11 million. All of this is thanks to a Bush administration program known as PEPFAR. Even on the day of its launch during the 2003 State of the Union, no one much noticed it. It cost a fraction of a percentage of the overall budget and was far less expensive than the Iraq war, effectively announced on the same day. Yet PEPFAR is, according to journalist Emily Bass, "the best thing America has done beyond our borders in this century." To End a Plague is not merely a history of this extraordinary program; it describes the cost of success in our broken political system. PEPFAR was likely a cynical political ploy--a "legislative trophy" as the New York Times described it--and its overseers, including the now-famous Coronavirus Task Force leader Deborah Birx--had to make moral and political compromises to keep it from being shut down. Yet the program has persevered and made an enormous improvement in millions of lives. This is the story of true change and what it takes to make it.

America's Bold Quest to Defeat AIDS in Africa

To End a Plague

Rahne Alexander

Jordan Arseneault

Kelvin Atmadibrata

Nicholas D'Avella

Theodore Kerr

Adam Barbu

Carlos Motta

Avram Finkelstein

WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT AIDS COULD FILL A MUSEUMCuratorial ethics and the ongoing epidemic in the 21st CenturyWith over 40 contributors from around the world, this issue of On Curating wrestles with "forgetting", "seeing", "collecting" and "making" AIDS related culture in the 21st century, and the growing impulse to historize aspects of early responses to the crisis.Through academic essays, conversations, visual projects, reprints and personal reflections, a reader will be exposed to ideas, theories, images, and advice from artists, academics, activists, curators, writers and others around the ethics and practices of curating AIDS-related culture within the ongoing epidemic.Edited by writer, organizer and educator Theodore (ted) Kerr, WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT AIDS COULD FILL A MUSEUM is an important contribution to the vital conversation about HIV/AIDS-related culture that both centers the role of museums as sites for community, knowledge sharing, inspiration and healing, while also exploring their limits and future possibilities.With contributions byAbdul-Aliy A Muhammad and Louie Ortiz-FonsecaAdam Barbu and John Paul RiccoAlper Turan Avram FinkelsteinCarlos Motta, John Arthur PeetzCatalina ImizcozCharan SinghCharles Stephens with Naina KhannaDr. Manon S. ParryDudu QuintanilhaEdward BellevilleEmily Bass and Yvette RapheaelEmily ColucciGreg ThorpeHeather HolmesJ. Ricky PriceJaime Shearn CoanJean Carlomusto, Hugh Ryan and Alexandra JuhaszJordan ArseneaultKairon Lui and Manuel SolanoKate HallsteadKelvin Atmadibrata and Benji de la PiedraL.N. HafeziLuiza Kempińska, Hubert Zięba, Szymon AdamczakLyndon K. GillMarika CiforMavi Veloso and Nicholas D'AvellaMichael CrumplerMichael McFaddenMichael MiiroNelson SantosRahne AlexanderRenaud Chantraine, Florent Molle, and Sandrine MussoSheldon RaymoreSian CookStamatina GregoryVladimir CajkovacWhat Would an HIV Doula Do?

OnCurating Issue 42: What You Don't Know about AIDS Could Fill a Museum

Emily Bass

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