Double Portrait was a project designed for the Professional Performing Arts School and Broadway Equity Fights AIDS.  Both institutions had two goals in mind.  The first one was to educate inner-city teenagers about AIDS and the second one was to give support to performing artists who are living with AIDS.  They asked me to produce a video to show at their benefits.  Twelve students and three performing artists participated in the project.

I divided students into three groups and assigned each to a performing artist.  I used two video cameras, one recording the student and the other recording the performing artist.  I asked the students to interview the artist.  I then asked an artist to interview back to a student asking reasons behind his/her questions.  As a result students preconceptions and bias towards AIDS were revealed.

Towards the end one of the students confessed his own experience of his father dying with AIDS.  During the project students and I personalized the epidemic in various ways.  The performing artists too expressed their gratitude at being part of the communication process.