Context (Field collection)
Customised print commissioned by MAA from Bongiwi Mba's original acrylic painting, 2003.

The Bambanani Women’s Group formed in 2002 to participate in the creation of memory books and boxes aimed to help people come to terms with their diagnosis, to disclose their HIV - status to their families and children and to begin the planning for the future. The group went on to work on the Longlife Project which created 'body maps', life-size outlines of the artists' bodies filled with colourful depictions of the effects of the HIV virus on their life

The Longlife Project recorded the life stories of the women who were participating in a Medésins Sans Frontières (MSF) pilot antiretroviral programme and raised awareness and campaigned for antiretroviral treatment to be made available in the South African public healthcare sector. The Longlife Project marked a shift from ‘preparing for death’ with the creation of memory boxes to ‘fighting for life’ as antiretroviral therapy was made available in public clinics and hospitals in late 2003.

The body maps published in the book Longlife: Positive HIV Stories together with interviews of people working on the project and limited edition fine art prints of the original body maps were exhibited locally and internationally at conferences, fundraising events and in art galleries.

After the Longlife Project the Bambanani Women’s group went on to be trained as field researchers and worked on surveys conducted by the Centre for Social Science Research at University of Cape Town. Some members of the group have continued to do Memory Book and Body Map workshops and presentations for organisations such as VSO, Tateni Home Based Care, Red Cross, Médecins Sans Frontières and medical students at the University of Cape Town.
Event Date 2003
Author: rachel hand

Context (References)
Jonathan Morgan & Bambanani Women's Group (2003). Longlife: Positive HIV Stories. Cape Town: Double Storey Press, p. 100-11.
Event Date 2003
Author: rachel hand

Description (CMS Description)
Body map in red and brown, with yellow outline‘Bongiwi Mba 8/45’ written in pencil on base of frame
Event Date 16/12/2009
Author: maa

Context (CMS Context)
Bongiwe says 'I feel very proud of this picture. I'm proud because it's going to be in the book and people are going to see that people with HIV are active and they are alive. This here on the left side of my face is my bible. It's in my mind. My symbol in my chest is a Protea flower. It's a flower that represents South Africa .

And the scar under my hair on my head. I was coming from a friend's 21 st birthday party and then I saw this car. I think there were about five, no, six because there was a lady, and I was forced in the car. They take me to the bushes, on the N2 road, there's that concrete fence.

The whole process took place there and I was raped. One guy said we must kill this girl because she's going to tell a lot about us to the police. But they just left me there. The other one hit me with a beer bottle here on my head and blood started coming out.

My mother started to get sick in the year 2001 in early January. And she passed away on August. My mother didn't tell me that she was HIV positive, I found out myself.

This small person inside my stomach it's me. It is me when I started using ARVs. I was small and so tiny. I was weighing 46 kilograms. It was March this year. Then I started using ARVs and I gained a lot of weight. I have improved a lot. I am weighing 58 kilograms now. So this big body around the small body is me now.

Now I'm feeling great. I'm feeling strong, I'm feeling happy. I am alright now. At the clinic they told me I can take ARVs for five years. In that five years I think, if I could get some money I would go to further up my studies, buy my own house. I don't plan on getting children, since I am HIV. I just want to live with my brother. That is all I need. I live by myself now, just me and my cats. Details taken from
http://www.memorybox.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37&Itemid=49. Accessed 5/2/2013
Event Date 16/12/2009
Author: maa

Context (Display)
Exhibited in Assembling Bodies: Art Science & Imagination, MAA, March 2009- November 2010,with the following details, 'This is the bible in which I believe. I put it there by my head because it's one of the things I sometimes think of. It's in my mind. This scar shows where I was beaten by my uncle with a sjambok. This scar here, this scar here on my head, [is when] I was raped [and] hit with a beer bottle. The small person inside my stomach, it's me when I started using ARVs I was so small and tiny. Then I started using ARVs and I gained a lot of weight. So this big body around the small body is me now (Bongiwe 2003).'
Event Date 7/3/2010
Author: Rachel Hand

Conservation (Assessment Only)
CON.2025.6188 | Assessment Only
Event Date 30/4/2025
Author: Stephanie De Roemer

Description (Physical description)
Digital print from a body map painting by Bongiwi Mba, 2003, of an outline of a body with writing around it, red/brown background . Printed on canvas, stretched and framed
Event Date 30/4/2025
Author: Rachel Hand