With literally every single queer bar, club and venue closed until further notice and all Pride parades and other queer festivals canceled this year, it looks pretty dim on the queer visibility front right now. But all clubs and bars are closed and festival canceled – what difference does it make, you might wonder? Of course, every nightlife and cultural space has its importance – but for the queer community these places and events are not just for fun and socializing, they are important platforms for activism and for the fight for acceptance and equality. There is still a lot of homophobia and transphobia in the world, even here in Berlin. Queer visibility is an important act against those nasty phobias – and for queers to disappear into quarantine behind locked doors and behind anonymous masks is quite the setback.
Musician, stage performer, editor, and Berlin’s only real Diva Kaey has come up with a clever plan on how queer visibility can continue in a creative way in times of Corona. For over a month now, she has taken the time during the quarantine to sew hundreds of colorful facemasks with rainbows, sequins, and Tom of Finland prints for the queer community. This way we can be out and proud every day when we’re complying with the new face mask rules in the city.
Read on…
by Frank | Pandemic, People, Stories
Musician & Songwriter VELVE wearing I‘ VR.
I’m well aware that there is a certain controversy about self-made or non-medical face masks. The German government has so far been shy about ordering the people to wear face protection, mostly because of the extreme shortage of available certified masks but also because the effectiveness of masks is still debated. One thing is certain though: Those few countries that have a mask policy in place seem to have much flatter curves. This can, of course, have various reasons. But then again, if you just think about it. The more people wearing masks, the less those will accidentally cough or sneeze out into the open in the early stages of infection when they are the most contagious and the least likely to show symptoms yet.
While a few weeks ago the Germans seemed to be quite reluctant to wear masks, in the last week it has dramatically changed and I see a lot of people with self-made or other fabric masks out in the streets. And I do admit it does make me feel a little more safe seeing more people around wearing masks and consciously protecting others from being accidentally infected by them.
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by Frank | Fashion
photos: Joseph Wolfgang Ohlert
Gender, identity and self-expression are very delicate, intimate subjects to address.
The true kaleidoscope of human identities, facets and preferences is as diverse as there are people on this planet. Beyond a world of black and white, there is a whole range of color, which makes life interesting. Yet we all want the same thing: recognition for who we are and what we feel.
And to get said recognition, visibility is crucial.
“Gender concerns anybody and is part of every identity,” says Joseph Wolfgang Ohlert, author of the new book ‘Gender as a Spectrum’.
The photographer teamed up with entertainer, artist and Transgender activist Kaey, and portrayed people from Berlin and various places on the planet. All of them are a facet of the kaleidoscope, moving between the polarity of gender. For over two years Ohlert worked on this book with Kaey, capturing people in an authentic, emotional way that is both raw and rare. While Ohlert took the photographs, Kaey interviewed the portrayed people, so the reader gets to know the personalities behind the picture even better, learning about their personal self-concepts, self-definitions, views and wishes.
And maybe the reader starts asking himself these questions, finding answers about himself, or maybe just learning about the people that are all with him on the kaleidoscope of being a person.
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by Yasmin | Books, Photos
