World AIDS Day '94 Observed

A candlelight vigil, a controversial art exhibit and a benefit concert marked the commemoration of World AIDS Day '94 yesterday.

The events, designed to raise awareness about the epidemic, were intended to address the rising urgency to combat the disease, said Bisexual Gay and Lesbian Students Association (BGLSA) Co-Chair Royce C. Lin '96.

"People are beginning to see AIDS isn't only a gay disease, that it doesn't differentiate between people of different races or orientations," Lin said.

Twenty-seven students attended a BGLSA-sponsored candlelight vigil last night.

Cold didn't deter the group from "reflecting on how AIDS affects us," said Lin.

Among the more controversial events of the day was a Dudley House art exhibit designed to raise awareness. The show was sponsored by the Lesbian, Bisexual and Gay Graduate Students (LBGGS).

The exhibit, Cameron S. Wolf's "The Mirror of the Plague," featured a series of photographs, including some of same-sex couples.

"The AIDS epidemic has prompted me to examine sexual portrayal, particularly that of same-sex couples," Wolf wrote in a flyer accompanying the exhibit.

Earlier this week, Wolf charged that Dudley House Master Daniel S. Fisher censored his work by choosing to display only a portion of his photographs.

Fisher has referred to the accusations as "nonsense."

"Some fraction of people are offended by nudes..and it doesn't seem appropriate to have those hanging in a room which is used for all sorts of things," Fisher said on Tuesday.

Additional World AIDS Day events included "Faculty Unplugged," a benefit concert organized by the AIDS Education and Outreach (AEO).

About 250 people filed into Paine Hall to watch HIV victim Matthew Florence '89 speak about his experience with AIDS.

Florence's speech was followed by a solemn poetry reading.

The concert concluded with a somewhat unconventional musical performance--Baird Professor of Science Dudley R. Herschbach and Lecturer on Molecular and Cellular Biology and on Chemistry James E. Davis together sang a song about the elements.

In dining halls, fortune cookies were distributed to increase AIDS awareness. The messages in the cookies offered chilling caveats: "I don't want to watch you die," and "Don't be sure you won't get it."

The Harvard AIDS Institute, in observance of the day, recognized Elizabeth Glaser with its third annual AIDS Leadership Award. Glaser, who contracted HIV in a blood transfusion while giving birth to her first child, was a co-founder of the Pediatric AIDS Foundation.

The institute also presented its first-ever AIDS Awareness Award to Kathy Mattea, a Grammy-award-winning country singer.

Events will continue through the middle of next week. The School of Public Health will sponsor safe-sex workshops tomorrow. And several individuals will speak next week on issues concerning HIV.

Still, AIDS activists warned against the failure to take action.

"Education alone is not enough," Florence told the audience.