Austrian magazine Vangardist participate to the campaign HIV Heroes, launched by agency Saatchi & Saatchi, by printing 3000 copies of their issue dedicated to HIV and fake ideas around this disease.
For this, the 3000 copies’ covers, made by photographer Darius Lucaciu, have been printed thanks to ink infused with blood coming from three HIV positive people included Wiltrut Stefanek and Wyndham Mead. The other 15 000 copies have been printed with conventional ink.
The blood was first treated at the University of Innsbruck to make sure that no contamination is possible. A little printing house in Austria accepted to print the copies and the boss took care of this, alone, not to imply his employees. The magazines have been sold in plastic bags for legal reasons and to confront the readers to their desire of touching or not the cover. The question behind this project is : “Would you touch this magazine printed with contaminated blood?” to contradict the fake idea which says that a sick person is contagious by a simple contact.
Photos by Julian Behrenbeck.
