Remembrance of a pandemic almost past
There are all manner of museums in the world, from the heart-wrenching Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and renowned art galleries such as State Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia, to the downright bizarre, such as the International UFO Museum in Roswell, N.M., and the Instant Ramen Museum in Osaka, Japan.
Yet, there has been no Museum of AIDS, no formal remembrance or commemoration of the worst public-health disaster in history, a modern-day plague that has infected an estimated 78 million people, 43 million of whom have died. (Those numbers are in dispute, but even if the estimates are off by a few million, the impact of AIDS is undeniable; it has scarred Africa as much as slavery did centuries ago.)
But that is about to change.
The Museum of AIDS in Africa is already a travelling exhibit, a pop-up museum that was on display most recently at the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, Australia. Within a few years, it hopes to become a bricks-and-mortar institution, likely in Johannesburg or Durban, South Africa.
“It’s an odd museum, because the pandemic is still on-going,” said Deirdre Prins-Solani, past president of the International Council of African Museums and a board member of the AIDS museum. “But we think the time is right.”
Full column by Andre Picard available in The Globe and Mail.