A Farm Funeral
In the early 2000s, the stigma associated with AIDS, as it was then called, made it an unmentionable disease. This was amplified in rural settings, where everybody knew everybody’s business. It also meant that the rural impact of AIDS was completely underestimated and under-reported. I have chosen not to use the names of the people affected in the captions, but you will see her name in one of the images.
The young woman whose funeral I attended, was a member of a family that had lived on this (white-owned) farm for generations, and they still continue to live there. The cause of death wasn’t publicly acknowledged at the funeral, but her mother wanted me to know. Years later a distant relative of the family saw this series of images on my portfolio site that I had provided when I was applying for a commission at a company in South Africa, where he was employed. He got in touch and berated me for making unfounded claims and displaying their shame in public. I had to tell him that her mother wanted people to know. And that’s all that mattered.
