AIDS kills 8,000 people every day and has killed 24 million people to date. Some 4 million people were newly infected in 2004, swelling the ranks of people living with the virus to more than 40 million.
Although deeply disturbing, these statistics only begin to illustrate the degree of devastation and the extent of social change and dislocation that the pandemic has left in its wake.
Aids continues to exert its influence on every conceivable aspect of human endeavour. It is fuelling migration, shaking up gender roles, challenging popular conceptions of sexuality and reshaping family size and type.
It continues to outstrip even the most ambitious efforts of political, faith and civic leaders to prevent it and mitigate its worst effects. For the most part, Aids also remains widely misunderstood and pervasive HIV-related stigma and discrimination are universal features of the pandemic.
Given the global significance of the problem posed by Aids, together with the vital importance of information and understanding in effectively responding to it, it is disappointing that representations of the virus and its social, economic and political impact have been largely ignored by most of the world's museums.
There are of course some exceptions. Museums in the industrialised west have hosted HIV-related exhibitions, most commonly focusing on the effect of the virus on the local community and their response to it.
The disease has also featured in the work of many contemporary artists and as a result the issue is represented in contemporary art collections and exhibitions. HIV information and prevention resources have also been collected and exhibited by a number of museums.
But in the past ten years, with the advent of anti-Aids drugs and corresponding improvements in the health of people living with HIV in industrialised countries, the documentation and exhibition of the epidemic by western museums has diminished.
At the same time the number of people living with HIV and dying of Aids has grown and the battle to secure lifesaving treatment for them, the vast majority of whom live in the world's poorest countries, has become a critical international policy issue.
Unfortunately, for the most part, the lives of the 40 million people living with the disease around the world today, let alone the lives of countless others affected by it, hasn't become a focus for research, documentation or exhibition by the museum world.
But Sweden's Museum of World Culture provides us with a welcome exception to the rule. The museum opened the doors of its new building in Gothenburg at the end of 2004 with five exhibitions including No Name Fever - Aids in the Age of Globalisation.
Jette Sandahl, the museum's director, says that No Name Fever was the first exhibition that the museum decided to mount. For Sandahl, the choice of Aids as an issue for an exhibition in the new museum reflects her understanding of its mission: 'We want to be an institution with relevance to our contemporary age, and therefore must show themes that are defined by contemporary problems.
'Aids is a microcosm of our era's unsolved economic and power relationships, encompassing all the mechanisms, facets and conflicts of globalisation.'
The museum's embrace of contemporary issues, together with its desire to speak with relevance about the social and political aspects of the subjects it looks at, is reflected across the museum's opening exhibitions, but none more so than with No Name Fever.
The title of the exhibition refers to the denial surrounding HIV. More particularly it is the name that HIV positive patients in the Chinese province of Henan gave the disease prior to being diagnosed.
Thousands of poor farmers in Henan had sold their blood to illegal collectors and were infected with HIV in the process. Chinese photographer Lu Guang's pictures, which played a part in uncovering the blood donor scandal, are on display in the exhibition.
Photographic and video evidence of the impact of HIV have been the basis for most previous efforts to exhibit the pandemic in museums. In No Name Fever the Museum of World Culture combines photographs and videos with a wide range of material culture related to Aids.
In doing so it successfully creates a more thorough understanding of the disease and particularly of the people it affects than is commonly conveyed just with still and moving images.
An example is the display of objects belonging to sex workers in Bangladesh, such as their inexpensive jewellery and cosmetics, which successfully provides an intimate insight into their lives.
The inclusion of these personal belongings, which were sourced in collaboration with a community-based, HIV-prevention organisation working in Bangladesh, is representative of the approach that the exhibition has adopted.
Aids raises subjects that many societies have historically found difficult to discuss, such as sex, sex work, sexuality and intravenous drug use. All of these topics are approached candidly throughout this exhibition.
Most of the objects on display, such as the objects from the brothel in Bangladesh, have been sourced specifically for the exhibition. For Sandahl this reflects the museum's commitment to mounting exhibitions and programmes that deal with contemporary issues and are informed by, but not limited to, the museum's existing collection.
This is clearly something that Sweden's central government, which funds the museum, wants to encourage.
No Name Fever is organised around seven themes, each of which illustrates a particular emotional response to Aids. Each of the themes - denial, fear, anger, desire, despair, grief and hope - are contained in distinct 'polygons', which have been built for the exhibition and are situated in the museum's third floor exhibition space.
Emotions run high in response to Aids, but emotions can limit our capacity to respond to a subject in the most appropriate way. Emotional responses need to be informed by the available evidence and backed up with resources and commitment.
But in this case, although emotions are used as the basis for organising the exhibition, it still provides a surprisingly comprehensive overview of the disease. The decision not to arrange the artefacts in historical sequence does have its challenges, which are exacerbated by the lack of a clear route through the exhibition.
Some specific events and movements have been highly influential in shaping subsequent developments and the historical significance of these events is maybe less clear than it should be. But this is a minor issue, which could easily be overcome with improved signage.
Sandahl talks enthusiastically about Gothenburg's new museum as a place for public engagement in global questions such as Aids. The museum intends to host a wide range of public events to coincide with the exhibition, including a series of visits by Aids activists from around the world.
Through the process of developing the exhibition, the museum has developed strong links with academics, activists and policy makers working on Aids globally. If these are used effectively, Gothenburg could emerge as a significant site for reflection and action on the issue over the coming years.
The museum has also published a book of 13 articles by scholars on issues associated with HIV, which it sees as a vital part of its commitment to research.
It is clear from speaking to Sandahl that the decision to open Sweden's new ethnographic museum with an exhibition on HIV/Aids took some courage.
But what's more remarkable is that the resulting exhibition approaches the difficult issues that Aids raises with a refreshing degree of frankness and honesty. It would have been easy to have developed a sanitised exhibition for public consumption.
Visitors to this exhibition will instead come away with a better understanding of the disease, its personal and collective impact and how it has shaped, and is being shaped by, global culture, politics and economics.
In learning more about the disease people will find out about the relationship of Aids to homosexuality, sex work and drug use. They will also learn about the disproportionate impact of the disease on the world's poorest women, the efforts that governments have gone to deny the existence of the virus and the work of people all around the world, particularly people living with the disease, in fighting it.
Hopefully this will encourage museums elsewhere to consider how they might engage with Aids, which as this exhibition demonstrates, is one the greatest global challenges of our time.
Joseph O'Reilly is an international lawyer and consultant and the founding director of the International Human Rights Museum Initiative and chair of the International Aids Film Festival.
Although deeply disturbing, these statistics only begin to illustrate the degree of devastation and the extent of social change and dislocation that the pandemic has left in its wake.
Aids continues to exert its influence on every conceivable aspect of human endeavour. It is fuelling migration, shaking up gender roles, challenging popular conceptions of sexuality and reshaping family size and type.
It continues to outstrip even the most ambitious efforts of political, faith and civic leaders to prevent it and mitigate its worst effects. For the most part, Aids also remains widely misunderstood and pervasive HIV-related stigma and discrimination are universal features of the pandemic.
Given the global significance of the problem posed by Aids, together with the vital importance of information and understanding in effectively responding to it, it is disappointing that representations of the virus and its social, economic and political impact have been largely ignored by most of the world's museums.
There are of course some exceptions. Museums in the industrialised west have hosted HIV-related exhibitions, most commonly focusing on the effect of the virus on the local community and their response to it.
The disease has also featured in the work of many contemporary artists and as a result the issue is represented in contemporary art collections and exhibitions. HIV information and prevention resources have also been collected and exhibited by a number of museums.
But in the past ten years, with the advent of anti-Aids drugs and corresponding improvements in the health of people living with HIV in industrialised countries, the documentation and exhibition of the epidemic by western museums has diminished.
At the same time the number of people living with HIV and dying of Aids has grown and the battle to secure lifesaving treatment for them, the vast majority of whom live in the world's poorest countries, has become a critical international policy issue.
Unfortunately, for the most part, the lives of the 40 million people living with the disease around the world today, let alone the lives of countless others affected by it, hasn't become a focus for research, documentation or exhibition by the museum world.
But Sweden's Museum of World Culture provides us with a welcome exception to the rule. The museum opened the doors of its new building in Gothenburg at the end of 2004 with five exhibitions including No Name Fever - Aids in the Age of Globalisation.
Jette Sandahl, the museum's director, says that No Name Fever was the first exhibition that the museum decided to mount. For Sandahl, the choice of Aids as an issue for an exhibition in the new museum reflects her understanding of its mission: 'We want to be an institution with relevance to our contemporary age, and therefore must show themes that are defined by contemporary problems.
'Aids is a microcosm of our era's unsolved economic and power relationships, encompassing all the mechanisms, facets and conflicts of globalisation.'
The museum's embrace of contemporary issues, together with its desire to speak with relevance about the social and political aspects of the subjects it looks at, is reflected across the museum's opening exhibitions, but none more so than with No Name Fever.
The title of the exhibition refers to the denial surrounding HIV. More particularly it is the name that HIV positive patients in the Chinese province of Henan gave the disease prior to being diagnosed.
Thousands of poor farmers in Henan had sold their blood to illegal collectors and were infected with HIV in the process. Chinese photographer Lu Guang's pictures, which played a part in uncovering the blood donor scandal, are on display in the exhibition.
Photographic and video evidence of the impact of HIV have been the basis for most previous efforts to exhibit the pandemic in museums. In No Name Fever the Museum of World Culture combines photographs and videos with a wide range of material culture related to Aids.
In doing so it successfully creates a more thorough understanding of the disease and particularly of the people it affects than is commonly conveyed just with still and moving images.
An example is the display of objects belonging to sex workers in Bangladesh, such as their inexpensive jewellery and cosmetics, which successfully provides an intimate insight into their lives.
The inclusion of these personal belongings, which were sourced in collaboration with a community-based, HIV-prevention organisation working in Bangladesh, is representative of the approach that the exhibition has adopted.
Aids raises subjects that many societies have historically found difficult to discuss, such as sex, sex work, sexuality and intravenous drug use. All of these topics are approached candidly throughout this exhibition.
Most of the objects on display, such as the objects from the brothel in Bangladesh, have been sourced specifically for the exhibition. For Sandahl this reflects the museum's commitment to mounting exhibitions and programmes that deal with contemporary issues and are informed by, but not limited to, the museum's existing collection.
This is clearly something that Sweden's central government, which funds the museum, wants to encourage.
No Name Fever is organised around seven themes, each of which illustrates a particular emotional response to Aids. Each of the themes - denial, fear, anger, desire, despair, grief and hope - are contained in distinct 'polygons', which have been built for the exhibition and are situated in the museum's third floor exhibition space.
Emotions run high in response to Aids, but emotions can limit our capacity to respond to a subject in the most appropriate way. Emotional responses need to be informed by the available evidence and backed up with resources and commitment.
But in this case, although emotions are used as the basis for organising the exhibition, it still provides a surprisingly comprehensive overview of the disease. The decision not to arrange the artefacts in historical sequence does have its challenges, which are exacerbated by the lack of a clear route through the exhibition.
Some specific events and movements have been highly influential in shaping subsequent developments and the historical significance of these events is maybe less clear than it should be. But this is a minor issue, which could easily be overcome with improved signage.
Sandahl talks enthusiastically about Gothenburg's new museum as a place for public engagement in global questions such as Aids. The museum intends to host a wide range of public events to coincide with the exhibition, including a series of visits by Aids activists from around the world.
Through the process of developing the exhibition, the museum has developed strong links with academics, activists and policy makers working on Aids globally. If these are used effectively, Gothenburg could emerge as a significant site for reflection and action on the issue over the coming years.
The museum has also published a book of 13 articles by scholars on issues associated with HIV, which it sees as a vital part of its commitment to research.
It is clear from speaking to Sandahl that the decision to open Sweden's new ethnographic museum with an exhibition on HIV/Aids took some courage.
But what's more remarkable is that the resulting exhibition approaches the difficult issues that Aids raises with a refreshing degree of frankness and honesty. It would have been easy to have developed a sanitised exhibition for public consumption.
Visitors to this exhibition will instead come away with a better understanding of the disease, its personal and collective impact and how it has shaped, and is being shaped by, global culture, politics and economics.
In learning more about the disease people will find out about the relationship of Aids to homosexuality, sex work and drug use. They will also learn about the disproportionate impact of the disease on the world's poorest women, the efforts that governments have gone to deny the existence of the virus and the work of people all around the world, particularly people living with the disease, in fighting it.
Hopefully this will encourage museums elsewhere to consider how they might engage with Aids, which as this exhibition demonstrates, is one the greatest global challenges of our time.
Joseph O'Reilly is an international lawyer and consultant and the founding director of the International Human Rights Museum Initiative and chair of the International Aids Film Festival.
Email: j.oreilly@ihrmi.org
www.ihrmi.org
The Museum of World Culture www.varldskulturmuseet.se
www.ihrmi.org
The Museum of World Culture www.varldskulturmuseet.se
