Artist: Jeffrey Scott Wilson, AIDS at Home Exhibit

The object/artwork that resonated with me was Jeffrey Scott Wilson’s HIV Sampler. His piece of art was based on an embroidery “sampler” that young girls would traditionally practice needlework by embroidering the alphabet. What struck me about this was how true of a statement it was making. Based on the caption of the artwork, the lettering of the alphabet into the letters of “HIV” “suggests an innocence interrupted by [the virus].” This line made me think of the short reading we had done in the subway on the way to the museum. The reading discussed the unequal amount of attention received by the victims of HIV and AIDS, in comparison to the amount received by the victims of 9/11. While people commemorated all those lost in the 9/11 attack, those lost in the battle against the immunodeficiency disease were either forgotten and/or stigmatized. However, in both cases of HIV and AIDS and 9/11, all victims were living their lives innocently before tragedy struck, whether it had been in the form of the 9/11 attack or HIV and AIDS. That is the point I believe both the author of the reading and Wilson were attempting to make: Tragedy can come in all different kinds of forms and can come to anyone that is simply living their life every day; there should be no event or disease that is held higher in importance than the other.