Take a weighty global issue like vaccinations, pour in a bunch of creative types, and stir well. The results of this artistic tincture is The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s The Art of Saving a Life, a compendium of photographs, videos, stories, illustrations, and pieces of art that bring to light the impact of vaccines on human lives and collective history. The collection has contributions from more than 30 artists from across the globe, from Benin to Russia, and is filled with notable names like actress-turned-human rights campaigner Mia Farrow, whose adopted son suffers from polio, iconic photographer Annie Leibovitz, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks. There’s even a camo-and-embroidery health worker uniform made by one of China’s most famous designers. The collection rolled out over the month of January to seek support for a vaccination alliance called Gavi and a goal of vaccinating 300 million more children by 2020. In Bill and Melinda Gates’s annual letter, released on Wednesday, the humanitarians predict four diseases will be forever wiped off the face of the earth in the coming 15 years.
Sebastião Salgado, a Brazilian photographer, shot this series of pictures depicting the campaign to eradicate polio across South Sudan, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, and India.
SebastiÃÂão Salgado / Amazonas images via Sunshine Sachs
The population of the cattle camp of Keny walk toward the polio vaccinators as soon as they arrive in what is now South Sudan.
Sebastião Salgado / Amazonas images via Sunshine Sachs
Polio vaccination in the village of Irro-Jo Whandhio, situated on the border of Pakistan with India’s Rajasthan State.
Sebastião Salgado / Amazonas images via Sunshine Sachs
Health workers hold down children in Sudan for immunization. This photo was the cover of his 2003 book, The End of Polio.
Sebastião Salgado / Amazonas images via Sunshine Sachs
Amar Jyoti rehabilitation and research center founded in 1981 to work with polio-disabled children provides education, occupational therapy, physiotherapy and vocational training in East Delhi, India.
Sebastião Salgado / Amazonas images via Sunshine Sachs
