COMPELLING IMAGES OF UGANDA'S AIDS VICTIMS
by Rhonda Chriss Lokeman
The Kansas City Star
When you look at the people in photographer Gloria Baker Feinstein’s latest exhibition, you aren’t sure whether you are seeing someone living or a ghost.
Not only are some images haunting, but her opening this weekend at Kansas City’s Leopold Gallery sheds light on Ugandan AIDS orphans. Some of the children in the black-and-white stills lost their parents to AIDS or their relatives to war, or they have AIDS themselves.
So when you look at “Girl in Front of Chalkboard,” simply dressed with her head shorn, you don’t know whether she still exists.
You certainly hope that she does, because the picture was just taken in 2006 at the St. Mary Kevin Orphanage Motherhood in Kajjansi, Uganda. But because of the controversy surrounding AIDS treatment in Africa — and the politics of AIDS in general — you aren’t completely sure.
Still you hope, because just as there are people in Kansas City who have died with AIDS, there are still many who are living with AIDS.
Therefore, the girl at the chalkboard becomes just another student posing for her class picture.
The shot of boys huddled at St. Miria School in Magada village — the one with the boy pushing a flower toward the camera — makes you want to smile, not weep.
If there is any underlying sadness surrounding this exhibition, it comes from knowing the children with AIDS in these images may not live to adulthood. It is in knowing that orphanages like that visited by Baker Feinstein exist mostly through private donations and not enough international aid.
Public awareness is key. Many African children enter the world with a preventable disease, AIDS.
“This is a reality, the harshness of which few of us can imagine,” said gallery owner Paul Dorrell.
In the artist statement for this show, Baker Feinstein articulated the duality of emotions.
“In Uganda, something sorrowful and achingly sad is in the air and in the eyes of the children,” she wrote.
Indeed, you see it in the eyes of small boys in “Children in Front of Chalkboard,” taken in Magada. Their piercing eyes pose no menace, only a need for understanding and support.
“There is also something completely beautiful and uplifting,” Baker Feinstein said. “That combination, that contradiction, that fact of life is what I have tried to address with these pictures.”
She has succeeded on a grand scale in the gallery that recently moved from the Crestwood area to neighboring Brookside.
You see strength in the arched backs of Ugandan girls, their faces not shown. You see the zest to learn in the scattered books and bare feet of “Feet Under Desk.”
The bowed heads and clasped hands seen at St. Paul’s Primary School in Jinja confirm that God would not, could not, abandon these children.
The spiritual symbolism in “Hands in Sky” will be noticed right away. Less so is the sentiment in the more abstract image of a girl walking away. The photograph has an ethereal feel, a pastel quality and, in my opinion, is best of show.
Partial proceeds from the art sale are to benefit “Change the Truth,” a fund supporting children at St. Mary Kevin Orphanage Motherhood. Certainly, the children featured here deserve more than to be part of a private art collection. They deserve our help.
“Watering Hole” is the title of the photograph of a child’s hand pressed on the surface of well water in Kyotera. It stirs the soul, causes the subconscious to hear a gospel choir singing “Wade in the Water,” and opens the mind’s eye to see Ailey dancers glide across the stage.
At first glance, this exhibition appears simple, but something more complex is going on here.
This exhibition is less about children dying from AIDS and more about children living with AIDS.
More columns:
Rhonda Chriss Lokeman is a nationally syndicated columnist for Creators Syndicate. You can view her Creators column on national affairs Sundays on The Star’s Web site, KansasCity.com. Today she writes about war-funding bills.
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