How an AIDS Charity Keeps Sight of Its Mission

Employees of the American Foundation for AIDS Research don’t have to worry

about losing sight of their cause: They are reminded of it every time they pass hallways with this timeline showing the history of the AIDS epidemic and key dates and events at the foundation.

The timeline includes numerous archival documents, such as this 1981 article from The New York Times, which was one of the first news stories to mention the outbreak of a mysterious new disease described as “a rare cancer.”

A list of past and present board members is posted in white letters across the wall’s top, while the names of individuals, corporations, and foundations that have donated $50,000 or more from 1985 to 1999 appear in white letters placed on black boxes. The size of the box corresponds to the cumulative amount a donor has contributed. Italics designate contributions of goods or services.

Members of the group’s scientific advisory committee are listed in light gray type. The names of members of the National Council, composed of people of note, including celebrities, business and religious leaders, and entertainment figures, who lend their prestige to support Amfar in its mission, are listed in black italics.

Many of the celebrities also appear in photographs throughout the offices, including shots of the actresses Susan Sarandon and Natasha Richardson, as well as Elizabeth Taylor, the founding national chairman of Amfar’s board, shown here attending Cinema Against AIDS, in Cannes, France, which raised $1.2-million for the charity in 1999.

Six public-service advertisements designed by the Kenneth Cole shoe company, whose founder is also on Amfar’s board, are framed on the walls to show how the organization has spread its message to a wider audience.

Also sprinkled on the walls are notes about the achievements of researchers supported by the foundation, and photographs of AIDS scientists, like this one of Jack H. Nunberg, of the Montana Biotechnology Center at the University of Montana. Mr. Nunberg received an Amfar grant in 1998, which helped him develop the first vaccine capable of producing high levels of antibodies that may prove pivotal in protecting people from the AIDS virus.

In addition to photographs and other art, the walls are filled with quotations. Comments about the disease made by people affiliated with Amfar appear in light gray. Quotes from scientists and philosophers about the human condition are rendered in green and were chosen by Joseph Kosuth, the artist who designed the walls. One by the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer reads: “Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized. In the first it is ridiculed, in the second it is opposed, in the third it is regarded as self-evident.”