Ryan White was a teenager in Kokomo when he contracted HIV/AIDS from a blood transfusion in 1984.
He was by all accounts a remarkable human being. He seemed to understand the role he could play in the AIDS epidemic. He worked tirelessly, to the end of his short life, to help destigmatize AIDS. A remarkable human being.
More than worth memorializing. A bronze sculpture of White is in the works, created by artists and Senior lecturer of Sculpture at the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture and Design, Melanie Cooper Pennington. She also did the casting of Alfred Kinsey that sits on IU’s Campus. We talked to her about that sculpture and her more abstract that explores organic shapes in strange, unsettling ways.