Video Out

DiAna's Hair Ego: AIDS Info Up Front

Realizing the extreme inadequacy of local information on AIDS prevention, cosmetologist DiAna DiAna, with her partner Dr. Bambi Sumpter, took on the task of educating the black community, which makes up the majority of local AIDS cases, in Columbia, South Carolina. The video documents the growth of the South Carolina AIDS Education Network, which was born from and exists with DiAna s Hair Ego, DiAna s beauty salon. Inside the shop a condom display is as natural as a basket of curlers, combs and shampoo, and gossip about the usual stuff is replaced with discussion on the politics of AIDS. Creative camerawork and the intimate involvement of the videomaker let the viewer inside DiAna s Hair Ego.