The majority of people living with HIV/Aids in Kenya are very poor and have little time to reflect on their life experiences.  Many have been told time and again that they are failures and a shame to their families and communities.  As a result, many have come to see their lives as broken and of little value and meaning. 

In the Body Mapping workshop, we encourage participants to remember and tell the story of their lives from their own point of view, without the judgement attached by others.  Through the use of painting, participants have the opportunity to create a beautiful, meaningful and lasting document of their lives.

Self-esteem and a positive outlook onto life are important to cultivate for anybody, but even more so when struggling for survival with HIV/Aids.  It takes immense psychological and physical resources to live with the fear of dying and to additionally face stigma and discrimination on a daily basis.  Isolation, self-blame and depression are often the result.  It is widely acknowledged that such a state of mind and soul has also a negative impact on a person’s immune system and therefore further lowers the body’s ability to keep the HIV virus under check.

In the Body Mapping workshop, participants connect with others sharing similar life experiences.  We cultivate a non-judgemental and caring atmosphere in the group and encourage participants to discover and creatively express the strength and beauty within them.

HIV/Aids awareness campaigns in Kenya often focus on providing factual knowledge about risks of infection, ways of prevention, benefits of testing and possibilities of treatment.  This has been very effective in bringing the existence and danger of HIV/Aids to people’s consciousness and in drawing increasing numbers of people into treatment.  It has done less, however, in breaking down the barriers of fear between non-infected and infected members within the community. 

Body Maps with their expression of personally lived experience have the potential to break down such barriers when exhibited in public.  The vibrant colours and often surprising symbolism stir playful curiosity.  Since the individual person depicted is never reduced to just being HIV positive, there are many ways in which viewers can identify with the author of the body map.  As a result, the maps can help to initiate exchange between one human being and another.

Contemporary creative arts and artists - especially visual artists - are barely recognised to be of value to Kenyan society.  Creative drawing, for example, is generally regarded as belonging to childhood.  Paintings are often seen only in the light of their decorative value and not for their potential to communicate and influence.  Possibly due to their isolation and low social status as well as fear of public reaction, very few visual artists in Kenya address social ills - such as discrimination surrounding HIV/Aids - in their art work.

Body Mapping workshops offer the rare opportunity for people from lower income communities to experience for themselves the scope and power of artistic expression.  We also invite local artists to assist the participants during the workshops.  This creates opportunities for exchange and more understanding of each others’ way of life and position in Kenyan society.  It further sensitises the artists to the complexity and pervasiveness of the HIV/Aids crisis and provides new stimuli for socially engaged art.