Veteran Photographer Kickstarts AIDS Activist Portrait Book

A new book of unique photographic portraits depicting AIDS activists from around the world, including members of ACT UP (The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) chapters in the United States and Europe, will be published in the spring of 2015. Veteran photographer and ACT UP/NY member Bill Bytsura is launching a Kickstarter campaign to fund the publication of his coffee table-style art book, titled the AIDS activist project.

"The AIDS activist project is a memorial to the brave men and women who died while fighting the epidemic and government neglect," said Bill Bytsura. "But this book is also a renewed call to action, because there is a pervasive myth that the AIDS epidemic is over."

From 1989 to 1998, Bytsura photographed AIDS activists from across the globe, beginning with members of ACT UP/NY and branching out to capture portraits of 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 conduct sessions with ACT UP members and other AIDS activists from Amsterdam, Berlin and Paris. His complete collection of 225 photographic portraits and original negatives, plus personal statements, are now archived at Fales Library at New York University, as part of The Downtown Collection.

The genesis for the AIDS activist project came when Bytsura, a longtime New Yorker, lost his life partner Randy to AIDS in 1989. Filled with anger and helplessness, Bytsura attended an ACT UP meeting. Eventually, he joined the Media Committee and took photographs of the colorful and raucous demonstrations that became a signature of the protest group.

"I saw ACT UP members as brave and heartfelt people taking a stand," Bytsura recalled, "but the public and media saw them as sinners, lawbreakers and disease carriers. I decided to photograph them in a series of quiet portraits, rather than in loud protests, so the world could see their reflective, heroic and mournful sides. This project became his obsession. I was reminded of the urgency every time one of my subjects had died, another fallen soldier to the epidemic."

From 1989 to 1998, Bystura took photos for the AIDS activist project. Then, after a decade of AIDS activism, he placed his work in storage. In 2011, Fales Library and Collections acquired the entire collection of 225 portraits, personal statements, and negatives, where it is now part of The Downtown Collection.

In the past few years, Bystera has been shocked and saddened that people have forgotten the epidemic, governments are reducing their AIDS budgets and transmissions are rising again. He realized that it was time to bring the AIDS activist project to the world as a coffee-table style book, both as a memorial to those we have lost and to inspire a new generation to renew the battle to end AIDS.

So he launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to publish the AIDS activist project, and is seeking your help to make it a reality. Kickstarter campaign incentives for backers of the AIDS activist project include first edition signed copies of the book, gicl�e prints and selenium-toned silver gelatin prints.

The campaign has raised more than $6,000 and has three weeks to go. Supporters can visit the AIDS activist project Kickstarter page at kickstarter.com/project/aidsactivistproject/the-aids-activist-project.