When students entered Parks Library Wednesday, they saw to their right a statue covered in black cloth. This is Ward’s horse sculpture.

The sculpture “Shoulders of Giants,” the clay horses sculpted by Nina Ward on the first floor of Parks Library, was covered Wednesday as part of the Day Without Art event hosted by the ISU Global Health and AIDS Coalition.

In front of the sculpture sat members of the ISU Global Health and AIDS Coalition, who wore and handed out red ribbons. These ribbons symbolize the solidarity of people living with HIV/AIDS.

Jacob Bliss, president of the ISU Global Health and AIDS Coalition, said the event was very low-key but said that attendance was decent.

“I feel like the location of the sculpture that we covered has caused more people to slow down and look, it has definitely made a lot of people look and think about what is going on,” Bliss said.

Day Without Art is one event held during Global Health Week, which ends on World AIDS Day on Dec. 1.

Bliss said that having Global Health Week this week because it leads up to World AIDS Day and it gives the most traffic to the Day Without Art event.

This is the second year this event has taken place at Iowa State, though it started nationally in 1989 by Visual AIDS, making this year the 29th anniversary of the original event, according to the Visual AIDS website.

“I think HIV and AIDS is not a highly talked about subject in America because it is not seen as a major health concern for most people and I think [Day Without Art] allows more people to question and look into it,” Bliss said.

Looking toward next year Bliss said he is hoping to have more people help out with this event so that they can cover more than one art piece.

“Day Without Art is a day to mourn the loss of people who have died from HIV or AIDS,” Bliss said.