Shannon Heuklom and Tobias Goulet

From my review of Shannon Heuklom and Tobias Goulet, both of Providence, at Firehouse 13 in Providence:

Shannon Heuklom of Providence spent the past two summers helping at a rural clinic, serving some 2000 HIV-positive patients, that is run by the nonprofit Hope Through Health in the West African nation of Togo.

"Fathers are going into cities to work, through some kind of sexual activity get HIV-positive, then bring it home to their wives," Heuklom tells me. When the wives become pregnant, they transmit the disease to their babies.

Heuklom brought along her medium-format camera to photograph patients visiting the clinic as well as people in their homes when she tagged along when workers from the clinic — who can speak from experience since they're usually HIV-positive themselves — to check on people's health, make sure they're sticking to their regimen of anti-retroviral medicines, and provide emotional support. "We can take a death sentence and turn it into a chronic issue and you can live a fairly normal life," Heuklom says. "And that should be for everyone."

Read the rest here.

Shannon Heuklom and Tobias Goulet, Firehouse 13, 41 Central Street, Providence, Jan. 5 to 16, 2010.

Pictured from top to bottom: Photos by Shannon Heuklom and Tobias Goulet.