Profession: Photographer
Location: barcelona, Spain
Home base: Barcelona (Spain)
URL: http://www.picturetank.com/lourdessegade
URL: http://www.evephotographers.com
reportage Motherhood and AIDS
Angelita is 85 and her youngest son, Ángel Luis, is 47. They should be living their own lives separately but Ángel has a cerebral atrophy caused by AIDS. And his mom has taken the option of looking after him until her last day.
Since the first case of AIDS was reported in Spain in 1981 the disease has progressively increased. Three of every 1.000 inhabitants are infected with HIV and there are around 2.000 to 3.000 new annual infections.
For society these people are invisible. But the fact is that a positive result in an HIV test can also be a bond to family or friends. The family response to the announcement of an HIV+ test is usually positive. After the initial shock there’s one member of the family who tends to strongly link herself to the infected son or daughter; she’s the mother. Many times, mothers who had lost touch with her sons and daughters because of their independence welcome them back and look after them when they announce they are infected, no matter how they got the virus.
This reportage explores the relationship between Angelita and her son Ángel Luis, who got sick in 2001. Doctors estimated that he had been infected with HIV for 20 years without knowing. Ángel was a heroin abuser and he too liked having sex with prostitutes. He begun being a drug addict during duty at the military service. Despite all the problems he brought to his mother’s life, she opened her arms for him every time he needed help, and she took the option of looking after him again when he became sick. By choosing this way of living, Angelita lost most of the members of her family, including her two sons-in-law and all their sons and daughters. Even though she knows that Ángel’s sicknes has brought her many problems in an age when she should be living a quiet life, she promisses that none will take her son far away from her while she is alive.
