Born to commemorate the so-called “Stonewall Riots” of June 1969, Pride month is now a consolidated reality in many cities around the world, which provides—sometimes with marathons that start in the middle of the month and continue until the symbolic dates of the 27th and 28th— activities also very busy, but always very colourful (and in many cases, as of this edition, newly in attendance). One of the initiatives that uses photography as its main language, and which is really worth mentioning, is the Pride Photo Award.
Pride photo award: the world in the rainbow zone
A travelling photo exhibition tells the many faces of the LGBTQIAP+ community.
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- Raffaele Vertaldi
- 26 June 2021
Promoted by the Pride Photo Foundation, a non–profit platform based in Amsterdam which has been working since 2010 to bring to our attention stories far removed from stereotypes, the competition encourages the submission of photographic works by people from «all walks of life», as the organisation’s website states, «regardless of gender, sexual preference, race, political belief, religion or nationality. The only requirement is that the photos represent any form of sexual and/or gender diversity». The foundation's declared aim is to promote and encourage the acceptance of simple but slippery concepts (and all too often instrumentalised, see the querelle over the Zan bill, but also the hypocrisy of the new Hungarian law on the "protection of children's rights" and, last but not least, the controversy over the rainbow lighting of the Munich stadium during the European Football Championships), such as sexual and gender diversity, or the plurality and fluidity of expression and identity that the LGBTQI+ community conceptually and physically witnesses. The exhibition that comes out of this initiative every year is itinerant (until November in various Dutch cities) and, for this edition, outdoors. And if we can finally accept as a positive fact that it will be impossible to go back to an “old” normality, where there were those who arrogated to themselves the right to define what was normal and what was not, there could never be a more appropriate theme for these times than that of the 2020/2021 edition of Photo Pride: Curiosity (subtitle: the compass of our passions).
The series tells the stories of Black queer, gender non-conforming, and transgender people living in the townships of Cape Town.
In her work, Kuleshova wants to share a discovery with her viewers – that ‘Ordinary People’ are just that – they enjoy tender moments, value happiness and the joy of everyday life despite open homophobia on TV, by politicians in Russian media, and by the Russian Church.
The series aims to show pleasure in a queer lifestyle. Using queer subjects from Guatemala City, in scenes with a contemporary narrative base of social media, sex, gender and sexuality, with layers of religious symbolism.
Where do you find refuge when there is no place in society for who you are and who you love as a person?
The series offers a glimpse into Uganda’s queer community
“The five men pictured in this series, are all gay and over the age of seventy. We have talked for hours. About ageing and dreams, love, exclusion, and fears, and out of these conversations, this series was formed.“ (Oded Wagenstein)
The series Somewhere Else Than Here by Sumi Anjuman is an indictment of the pressure that traditional cultural and conservative religious groups in Bangladesh can put on LGBTQ+ people who “come out”, revealing their (sexual) orientation or who they are.
What do you see when you look at the couples? In these photos we do not know which couple is real, and which has been staged.
In this series Queer farmers openly and proudly show themselves in their work environments.
This series documents locations where transgender people, typically transgender women of colour, have been murdered. The images grew out of a parallel project, Transcending Love, which is a series of portraits celebrating the beauty of transgender people, gender non-conforming couples and families.
Nichelle is someone the photographer Kennedi Carter is friends with, who is masculine presenting. They are a bodybuilder and with an absolutely stunning physique – Carter asked if she could shoot with them and they agreed. In the portrait, Carter wanted to create an image that echoed 1930’s American pin-up style imagery, something that felt hyper-masculine in juxtaposition to Nichelle’s queer identity.
In the image Black Pride, the intersections of Blackness and Queerness are visualised. Kennedi Carter shot this image in her hometown of Durham in North Carolina, US, just outside a Pride Festival. As she was leaving the festival to go elsewhere, she ran into a boy with the rainbow wings, who is captured in the photo. She asked if she could take his portrait and he agreed. Using an analogue camera with a roll of film that would later need to be developed, Carter unfortunately lost the roll of film for some time. A couple of years later she accidentally got the roll of film processed and developed with some other films, then discovering the image, Black Pride.