Billboards help to break AIDS silence

Durban-based Artists for Human Rights (AHR) won an international award in Geneva, Switzerland in August 2001 for its contribution to the de-stigmatisation of HIV/AIDS. The AHR won in the category "HIV/AIDS Media" for its "Break the Silence" Billboard Campaign.

Said Jan Jordaan, projects convenor for the Artists for Human Rights Trust, "We are hoping that the Medaille d'Excellence confirms to potential supporters of AHR efforts that artists can contribute creative solutions towards threats to society." The Artists for Human Rights Trust is a non-profit public interest organisation that facilitates the contributions of artists towards the full realisation of human rights and, most recently, towards breaking the silence around HIV/AIDS.

For the project, 31 community-based and professional artists, mostly from South Africa, but also from other countries in Africa and elsewhere, contributed artworks. The works were transposed onto large billboards to be installed in communities throughout South Africa to promote HIV/AIDS awareness and to encourage discussion on the theme "Break the Silence".

One of the billboards, sponsored by Shepstone & Wylie Attorneys, was erected in Durban's busy Umgeni Road. The AHR project aims to install a country-wide exhibition of approiximately 300 billboards, each carrying an artwork specially commissioned to express an anti-HIV/AIDS message as a service to the public. Businesses, in particular, are encouraged to sponsor the installations, with the cost per billboard being R8 500 and all arrangements being undertaken by the Projects Committee of the Artists for Human Rights Trust.

For further information about the Billboard Campaign and other projects, contact the Project Administrator via e-mail at: [email protected].