Tenderness and Rage is a multimedia exhibition staged in the heart of London that does not so much look back in anger as much as reflect on how HIV/AIDS disrupted so many lives in the 1980s/90s and beyond.

The irony of The Wellcome Collection staging Tenderness and Rage is not lost, as it acknowledges public protests by the ACT UP group in 1989. The original Wellcome PLC faced criticism due to funding issues linked to the dangers of new medications, with the heightened dosage of the AZT drug contributing to many more deaths until new forms of combination therapy arrived. Bold images of protesters at The Wellcome and on the streets around Trafalgar Square reveal the scale of protest.

Tenderness and Rage reveals much that is sincere and sensitive. The installation itself is a simple and clear-cut display concentrating more on the use of space to consider moral, social and ethical questions. These provide a journey through the gallery with stories to tell and share.

One focus is the Landmark Centre in South London, which during the 1990’s had become a key location for people living with HIV/AIDS. This centre offered sharing, caring and support while the world outside in the 1980’s under Margaret Thatcher’s reign was largely adverse, harsh and hostile. There are stories of people being shunned or turned away at the merest mention of HIV/AIDS, with a key focus on Gideon Mendel’s groundbreaking photographs of life on the HIV/AIDS ward at Middlesex Hospital. Stories of how different genders and London’s ethnic communities connected in ways that had not otherwise been possible are deeply moving.

Stories about the women-led Catwalk4power collective lead into a section on how gardening projects helped people appreciate the beauty of nature. This links into the way communities created banks to take food into homes cut off from the wider world. Community groups across London, including The Lighthouse, The Globe and Body Positive thrived through funds from fashionable celebrity events. These gradually began to wane as treatments grew more successful and centres closed alongside the arrival of new digital technology.

The scale covered by Tenderness and Rage extends beyond London and concludes with testimony and stories linked to the wider world, including Africa. They offer reflection on wealthy countries and the cutback of funding with implications for research, control and treatment of virus infections that are once again affecting the world at large.

Tenderness and Rage may look back.

It also opens up the need to combine new forms of tenderness and rage, inspired by enlightened exhibitions such as this which bravely ponder our history and future.