GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

November 25, 2005

Art museum to host panel on global and local action

by Natalie Hastings

Cincinnati-In recognition of World AIDS Day on December 1, the Cincinnati Art Museum is hosting a panel discussion to explore issues related to the AIDS pandemic and an information fair highlighting local organizations involved in the fight to eradicate HIV.

The event is a collaboration among the Cincinnati Art Museum, the World Affairs Council of Cincinnati, the Rotary Club of, Cincinnati International AIDS Initiative and Rotarians for Fighting AIDS. These groups are using the museum's current exhibition, "African Art, African Voices," on view through December 31, as a springboard to raise awareness of the AIDS crisis throughout Africa and around the world.

"This wide-ranging exhibition of the arts and culture of sub-Saharan Africa provides a perfect opportunity to address a very real

Efe mask: Path Clearer; Yoruba, Nigeria; 20th century; wood, enamel paint.

phenomenon that threatens the very fabric of African society-the AIDS crisis," said Glenn

Markoe, curator of African art at the museum.

World AIDS Day will begin with an information fair from 11:30a.m. to 3 p.m. and will conclude with a panel discussion at 6:30p.m.

The panel discussion, entitled "2005 World Aids Day: Creating Hope and Action," will feature George Moose, former U.S. assistant secretary for foreign affairs, ambassador to the United Nations and ambassador to Senegal; Victoria Wells Wulsin, president of Soteni International; Linda Shearer, director of the Contemporary Arts Center, who was part of the first AIDS day in New York; Patrick Odongo, AIDS activist; and Judith Kaufmann, former director of the Office of International and Health Affairs and senior advisor to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

"The discussion will focus on how the crisis is being addressed in a number of ways," said Deb Kittner, director of the World Af-

fairs Council of Cincinnati. "The panel will review and dialogue about how politics, medicine, nonprofits, the arts and grassroots efforts, locally and worldwide, are creating hope and action in this most serious situation."

The information fair that precedes the panel discussion will include local nonprofits who are addressing the AIDS crisis in Cincinnati and around the world, including Soteni International, AIDS Volunteers of Cincinnati, the Beaded Hope project, the Rotary Club of

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