A series of exhibitions, discussions and film screenings marked World AIDS Day at Harvard yesterday.

The day's events are part of AIDS Awareness Week, which is held from Nov. 28 to Dec. 5 nationwide.

Students said the events are designed to promote awareness of AIDS-related issues.

"Most people aren't even aware of the significance [of the day]," said Joanne Sitarski '01.

Yesterday's events commenced with a special exhibition, "Art as Medicine/Medicine as Art," held at the Fogg Art Museum.

The Fogg's Straus Gallery held a small, vividly wallpapered room where the Zinberg Clinic, Cambridge Hospital's AIDS service, counseled patients in full view of the public.

The brainchild of Dr. Eric N. Avery, a physician and printmaker, the exhibit was designed to challenge the boundary between medicine and art, according to the artist's statement.

Peggy Lynch F.N.P., a participating Zinberg Clinic staff member, said she was "really thrilled" to evaluate patients "in a place where people can learn more [about HIV]."

A sporadic but interested crowd observed the exhibition and its concurrent educational discussions, according to Marjorie B. Cohn, Weyerhaeuser curator of prints at the Fogg Museum.

The Harvard-Radcliffe AIDS Education and Outreach and the University Health Services' Center for Wellness and Communication set up information booths just outside the exhibit.

Many organizers of the day's and the week's events said that AIDS-related issues demand significant attention.

"The full week is justified" for the observation, said Tom S. Lee, co-chair of the Harvard University Arts Committee on AIDS, because of the "enormous impact AIDS has had on all of us."

An afternoon panel "Ethical Issues in International HIV/AIDS Research," was held at the Harvard School of Public Health (SPH) yesterday.

The panel was moderated by Richard G. Marlink, spokesperson for the Harvard AIDS Institute and lecturer at SPH and featured a discussion between Kenneth McIntosh '58, chair of the Division of Infectious Diseases and professor of pediatrics at Children's Hospital, and Wafaie W. Fawzi, assistant professor in the department of nutrition at the SPH, and George Annas '67, the chair of Health Law at the Boston University School of Public Health.

Two AIDS-related feature films, "Longtime Companion" and "Philadelphia," were shown in the graduate student lounge at Dudley House yesterday evening.

Students said they learned about the day's events through various sources.

"I know because I read it in The Crimson," said Jessica M. Kaye '00.

Another student said her professor announced the event in class.

"Dr. Davis told us in Chem 5," said Chiwen Bao '01.

Adams House non-resident tutor Kit W. Gattis '91 is assisting with a Cambridge Community Television film, a special about World AIDS Day, which will be filmed today.

Attendance was probably low at some of the day's events "more [due] to the holiday than to lack of caring," said Sitarski.

The week's AIDS Awareness Week activities continue with events such as a meeting to develop and launch the Harvard AIDS Memorial in the Dudley House Private Dining Room at 1 p.m. today and showings of two AIDS documentaries "No Regrets" and "All God's Children" in the Dudley House graduate student lounge at 6 and 6:30 p.m. today