We’re here. We’re queer. Get used to it! 202

Kia Sciarrone’s work We’re here. We’re queer. Get used to it! examines the internet for posts on LGBTQIAᐩ contributions in the globe. In numerous autocratic and/or religion-fetishized states, restrictions are introduced that block contributions on LGBTQIAᐩ topics due to homophobic tendencies and partially or completely block internet access. In Austria, this practice exists in many companies, which ban any articles or pages that deal with body politics. That being said, for private use, the internet should at least allow for the basic human right to information without restriction of sexual preferences. Sciarrone’s work addresses those moments of censorship by researching queer issues in numerous countries on the internet using a smartphone and leaving a colored rectangle in place of the existing or non-existing images, indicating the respective title of the article as the source of information. This creates a multicolored grid pattern that hides photography as photography or image politics and leaves out moments of representating reality. The fragments of text leave it up to viewers to activate their own imaginations in relation to the facts depicted and to mentally generate  a pictorial reality for them.

Text: Walter Seidl