Location: USA

Al culmine dell’epidemia di AIDS nei primi anni Novanta, l’Ambassador Hotel di San Francisco ha messo a disposizione degli ospedali sovraffollati le sue stanze: al servizio dei più poveri tra i poveri, ospitando coloro che non avevano altro posto dove andare e per i quali non era possibile fare altro che somministrare dosi quotidiane di morfina. Padilla ha seguito un medico, un’infermiera e un’assistente sociale che si prendevano cura dei pazienti “dell’Hotel AIDS”. Più tardi, è tornata nuovamente, questa volta sola, per intervistare e fotografare le persone che aveva conosciuto.

ABOUT DARCY PADILLA

Darcy Padilla is a documentary photographer. With a focus in narrative photography, she works on long-term projects about struggle and the trans-generational effects. She is an associate professor of art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a member photographer of Agence VU’ Paris. Padilla’s honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Open Society Institute Individual Fellowship, Getty Images Grant, Canon Female Photojournalist Award, World Report Master Award, W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography, and three World Press Photo Awards (first recipient for Long-Term Projects). Her photographs exhibited and published internationally with solo exhibitions at Visa pour l’image (France), DOCfield Festival (Spain), as well as the Festival of Ethical Photography and Cortona On The Move. Padilla’s monograph Family Love follows a family for 21-years — an intimate story of poverty, AIDS and social issues.