TOBIN SAUNDERS: When I look at the photographs and some of them are about 40 years old, the first thing that comes to mind is, shit am I really that old? (LAUGHS)

I guess I've been such a go-getter, that in a way, I haven't had a chance to reflect on some of the work I've done way back when, because I've been so busy just chugging on forward. And this project has really allowed me to start looking at some of my old photographs and ephemera and little treasures. 

I am Tobin Saunders, so I am the face, the person, behind Vanessa Wagner, and we share a hard-drive. 

Vanessa Wagner was a creation that came out of parties that I was throwing back in the early nineties. I was inspired by a seventies telly movie, where I got the name, and then Vanessa just started hosting parties and became a bit of a poster girl for HIV, as an out HIV positive person herself, and used that power, I guess, to reduce stigma and to increase visibility of people living happy, healthy lives with HIV. 

It's a portmanteau, the word 'edutainment'. Professor Kath Albury and myself, or Kath Albury back then and myself, were working together with various HIV/AIDS organisations around the country. Hosting panels and information sessions, and we realised that some of the subject matter is very heavy and serious and so to create a light and fun environment, was a really good way to help people relax and to share stories or to hear information. So, it was education and entertainment. A little bit of sweetness makes the medicine go down. 

Kath Albury is an amazing woman who I met back in the early eighties, through a trial youth, sexual health, peer education project, called Side Effects, with the wonderful Donna Confetti. It happened at the Children's Hospital in Camperdown. So I met Kath through that and some other amazing people. And our work continued, and continues up to this day. 

At that time I was probably only about 21, it was only just legal to be homosexual in New South Wales in 1984. So for me it was about discovering myself, as well.

When I was at school, there was no information to support a young gay man to learn about themselves, to understand all the complexities of negotiating sex and relationships and so I was learning at that time. 

I was yet to contract HIV and I never thought it was something that I would contract, but yeah, in 1991 I was unlucky. I felt like I wanted people to know about my HIV for a number of reasons. 

The first one was very selfish, I didn't want to have to keep telling people. And the second reason was I've never been a fan of secrets or about withholding information that's important for other people. Yeah, that was my aims, was to sort of get it out of my body if you like, and share it with the community, so it could be something discussed.

TOBIN SAUNDERS: I do remember the Wheel of Misfortune event in Katoomba, beautiful place, great audience and really great to see how people responded to a reimagining of a game show in the context of HIV/AIDS. 

I thought the title was just so brilliant and I'd like to thank Brent Beatle, who used to work at NAPWHA for cooking up that title. So, spin the wheel and you could come up with a side-effect or you could spin the wheel again and come up with some other malady or maybe funny concept that we built into this serious forum. 

The Sensible Buzzing campaign was created by Norrie May-Welby, and what was so amazing and innovative about this was it was for performers, mainly drag queens, to encourage them to, in the absence of a manager or an agent, negotiate fair deals when they performed, not to accept a bourbon and coke for their work. To look after themselves and also to celebrate the diversity of showgirls and performers. We all come in different shapes and sizes. Some are drag queens, some are singers, some are silly comedians, like myself. And I was very grateful Norrie asked me to be a part of that because Vanessa was always in her own little twig off on the drag tree. Doing her own thing, not necessarily on Oxford St, and because I'd worked in theatre prior to drag, I hope I was able to bring some valuable input around negotiating things well, standing up for yourself, saying "No" if the fee wasn't enough, and, yeah, performing sober. That's always helpful. 

The t-shirt! The t-shirt I got at the World AIDS Conference in Durban. The number on that shirt is the prison number of Nelson Mandela. And Nelson Mandela was of course an incredible man, but also really very supportive of the pandemic as it rolled out in Africa. And so I thought, this shirts great, I'll wear it to World AIDS Day events and other eminent events, and collected badges and little awards and medals and ribbons, and I just looked at it and thought, this t-shirt actually represents 40 years of warfare, if you like, with a virus. We lost a generation of amazing people, during the last 40 years with HIV, and so this t-shirt represents that, but it all represents some of the work that I've done. I call it my gay diggers t-shirt. 

So how might my life have been different, had I not contracted HIV? I've always wanted to fight for the underdog, minorities and people who are oppressed in societies. So I think I would have always been an activist. But it gave me extra grunt, because combining the skills of being an MC and an entertainer and a reasonably educated comedian, just seemed a really perfect fit for communicating information about a virus that is just so wrapped in misinformation and so connected to sexuality and sex and really quite an unique virus, particularly in the West. And so it just gave me a really chunky subject, that I live to explore.