How do we, as humans, discuss health-related topics? How is awareness disseminated? How do individuals articulate their experiences with illness? Art provides an answer––art is a mode of expression for individuals and communities struggling with illness and its consequences.

The exhibition presents African perspectives of these health-related topics and seeks to understand how individuals use art to articulate their feelings towards health. Health goes beyond illnesses themselves. Instead, the impact of illnesses on individuals and communities––living with disease, reconciling with the struggle, moving on after loss––are considered in this exhibition, as well.

In many African societies, some health-related subjects are customarily illicit. This exhibition features artists who have combatted this silence, using art to articulate the experience of living with mental illnesses and HIV/AIDS. In these cases, art improves the existing discourse providing a platform for communication and education on what can be done for treatment and prevention.

The “Siyazama” Project in South Africa meets both needs. Women communicate their experiences of living with HIV/AIDS through art and are given health-related educational access. Bonangani Ximba’s AIDS Orphans depicts the rarely-discussed but often-experienced consequence of children growing up parentless. The burden to raise such children falls upon communities as a whole. Also featured in our exhibition is the hippo water roller, which was created to directly improve the lives of South African families in regards to a growing crisis for water.

All artists, movements, and creations presented in this exhibition section are of African origin––this is of foremost importance. Stereotypical American views of Africa depict health on the continent as irreparably dire. Such understandings are damaging to the appreciation of modern African societies. Instead, this exhibition displays the ongoing efforts among Africans to improve the health-related dialogue, health education, and health itself.