WORLD AIDS DAY

Look And Learn: AIDS Awareness Posters Through The Decades

Saturday, December 1, is World AIDS Day and, 31 years into the epidemic, activists and medical professionals are still battling ignorance, fear and lax attitudes about the virus.

Awareness is one of the most powerful tools we have at our disposal, so it’s only appropriate we look at some images from the University of Rochester’s recently expanded collection of AIDS education posters. University physician Edward Atwater began collecting the posters (now numbering more than 6,000, from 100 countries) at the dawn of the AIDS crisis. His collection was uploaded online in 2011, the 30th year of the epidemic.

Below, view more vintage AIDs awareness posters, compiled for “Graphic Intervention,” a special exhibit organized in 2011 by the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.


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