Artist Statement:
LifeForce was created in 1998 with the model Nina Marks and creative collaborator Susan Forest. Nina has been living with AIDS for over 30 years. She is one of the longest documented AIDS survivors, having contracted the disease in the early 1980s in New York. At that time, Nina was a successful fashion model who was forced to leave the industry to tend to her illness at a time when there was very little research or knowledge regarding medical care to help women with AIDS. Nina has worked for many years as an AIDS educator and continues her journey in the fight against AIDS.
LifeForce challenges the audience to examine themes of beauty, sexuality, and living with AIDS. Nina uses her blood as make-up, forcing us to look at the feared, tainted blood in juxtaposition to the beauty of the model. The series also contains photographs of the grueling regimen of drugs, with one photograph showing Nina injecting a shot of Interferon.
LifeForce was first exhibited at the International AIDS Conference in Geneva, Switzerland in 1998.