Author(s): Phillip Shipton (Editor, Interviewer, Concept by); Daniel Cordner (Designed by); Roy Wilkins (Photographer); Garry Wotherspoon (Foreword by); Adrian Ogier (Associate Editor)

General Biography / Memoir

Phil Shipton and Roy Wilkins came together through The Ankali Project. A Sydney based project that provides emotional and social support to people living with HIV. It is from here that The HIV Book Project was born. Our vision is to produce an art and cultural project that reveals a social history documenting the diverse range of people living with HIV/AIDS over the last 35 years within Sydney, and nearby regions of NSW. The storytelling is achieved through reflective interviews and photographic portraiture in meaningful locales to each individual.The project is a peer led initiative; conceived, created, coordinated, photographed and documented by HIV positive people to engage with a range of diverse audiences and the wider community. We have been auspiced within Positive Life NSW, the voice of people living with HIV since 1988.The 40th anniversary of both the World AIDS Day commemoration and the Mardi Gras parade occurs in 2018, we consider it timely to produce an artistic representation of this social history highlighting the significant changes that have occurred since the early days of HIV, its impact on our communities, and where we are today. HIV has changed significantly over the last 30 years, from an acute infection to a chronic condition. With improved anti-retroviral treatments, we have seen our friends, and our lovers living with HIV move out of the hospital wards, back into society, relationships, full time employment, and life, albeit with ongoing stigma and discrimination. It is this journey of change that the HIV Book Project wishes to document. These changes have given many HIV positive people the confidence to become more visible within their communities and share their experience of what it is like to live with HIV. Living longer with HIV has also meant that many people are now ageing with HIV, something they never expected to do. We wish to document and highlight these exciting changes for our community by providing a vehicle that allows positive people to stand up, find their voice and create awareness in the wider community.