Adult Learners and AIDS Artwork: Suggestions for Adult Education Practice

The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways in which the creative and purposeful use of AIDS Artwork as an educational tool may reduce stigma about HIV/AIDS and help adult learners to regulate their own prejudices about the diseases. Imagine a child passed over and ignored because others believe even the slightest symbolic contact will result in the child passing a dangerous contagion. Imagine believing that victims of a terrible disease deserve to die from it. Imagine believing this disease was a punishment. Imagine losing your friends or a member of your family to this disease, knowing that you may soon follow in their footsteps. Imagine an uncontrollable pandemic. Imagine HIV/AIDS as one of the most relevant, continual cultural issues that we face as a global society. Realities surrounding human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) have changed since the first reported human cases in the 1980s, but stigma still marginalizes those who currently have or are falsely perceived to be more likely to contract HIV/AIDS (Parker & Aggleton, 2003; Varni, Miller, McCuin, & Solomon, 2012). This stigma increases health and psychological risks for persons living with HIV/AIDS— referred to in this paper as PLWHA (Vanable, Carey, Blair, & Littlewood, 2006). However, concerns related to stigma have been lowered for PLWHA in instances where those with whom they have close interactions have felt convicted by personal values not to discriminate (Miller, Grover, Bunn, & Solomon, 2011). Stigma-related concerns have been less ameliorated in instances where PLWHA felt as if others were not discriminatory simply because their community pressured them not to be. Therefore, exploring new techniques that increase adult awareness of their knowledge of, experience with, and beliefs about HIV/AIDS may be beneficial in decreasing stigma for PLWHA. The limited nature of HIV/AIDS education literature, tools, and instructional methods necessitates continued exploration of new practices. HIV/AIDS educators may benefit from the development of methods designed to bridge the gap between truth about HIV/AIDS and what people actually believe. AIDS Artwork—visual, fine, and performing art created by individuals to express feelings about or understanding of portions of the HIV/AIDS narrative—may be a powerful tool for teaching adult learners about HIV/AIDS realities. Nabulime and McEwan (2011) noted of their experiences using sculpture as a part of HIV/AIDS education in Uganda: By encouraging openness and dialogue, [sculpture helps] to reduce stigmatization and discrimination. As the interviews revealed, [the art] can educate, entertain and provoke interest. [Sculptures] simultaneously initiate discussion about the dangers of the disease, which may lead to behavioural change, while also giving hope by reducing stigmatization of those living with HIV/AIDS. (p. 292) AIDS Artwork has the potential to demonstrate the unnerving power of HIV/AIDS to cross sexual, racial, gender, age, and socioeconomic dividing lines. This may be accomplished through the engagement of adult learners in the reflective process of creating and explaining amateur art inspired by HIV/AIDS.