When, I was 18 , a friend of mine found out that he had contracted the HIV virus. At 22 his life changed forever and so did mine. At the time I was shocked. HIV and AIDs was something that happened to other people, people who didn't know better. It really brought the issue home: this wasn't an issue that was happening somewhere else, it was happening here.

I'd always taken precautions with myself and it came as a surprise that my friends weren't. It became something that I talked about, I never wanted another friend coming to tell me they had contracted HIV again. I became extremely interested in things related to HIV and AIDs specially in North America.

This article was interesting for me because it showed the ways that some people dealt with the AIDs crisis through art and also tried to help others and spread awareness about the issue. This is the first article of the last couple weeks that I felt did a great job at giving examples of works. gran Fury is really interesting to me because of the way they use the media to their advantage and the innovative techniques they used to get media attention.

I also find the decline of AIDs activism very interesting. I know growing up I didn't see a lot of ads or information related to AIDs with in the media. It's really a shame that so much was done in the eighties and early nineties and now very little is out there. I think in the west we like to believe that HIV and AIDs is no longer an issue that effect us, it's something that's happening elsewhere. It feels like the media does little to help dispel this believe, choosing to report for the most part on AIDs in places like Africa. Although HIV and AIDs is a big problem in those countries it's also important to be educated about the issues at home so that another pandemic doesn't occur. I think more emphasis needs to be placed on testing , very few of my friends have ever been tested , which could lead to a ticking time bomb.