Pride is a rainbow-packaged attack on heteronormativity, a time where individuals across the spectrums of sexuality and gender can broadcast the message, “We’re here, we’re queer, get over it.” Pride has become a LGBTQ+ institution, a global movement and a sanctioned cultural event across the Global North.
However, while individuals in countries like Germany can enjoy Pride celebrations worry-free, this is simply not the case for queer folk elsewhere. A case-in-point is that, in recent years, the Pride celebrations in cities such as Kampala, Beirut and Istanbul have been quashed (brutally) by police. While the struggle for LGBTQ+ rights rages on across Western Europe and North America, queer individuals residing there still need to recognise their privilege by casting an eye to Pride festivities elsewhere.
This is exactly the approach informing Y’all Better Quiet Down, the Foam show conceived by London fashion photographer Florian Joahn, with styling by Amsterdam-based art director and stylist JeanPaul Paula. Working independently elsewhere, the duo have developed a reputation for stunning editorial work which broaches issues of race, sexuality and gender within the fashion context. Here, their arrestingly beautiful portraits hone in on the fact that, while São Paulo has a vibrant LGBTQ+ culture and the largest Pride parade in the world, Brazil is a site of escalating homophobia. Recent surveys report that last year in Brazil violence-related LGBTQ+ deaths reached an all-time high, with the civil rights group Grupo Gay da Bahia estimating that at least 445 LGBTQ+ Brazilians were killed in 2017 as a result of homophobia.
Against this backdrop, the bravery of Joahn and Paula’s unapologetically anti-conformist subjects is put into dialogue with landmark LGBTQ+ figures such as Sylvia Rivera and Martha P Johnson, who is alluded to in a portrait of Welsh drag queen Tayce in a floral crown and fur coat. The title of the exhibition itself, Y’all Better Quiet Down, is an homage to Rivera, who uttered these words in response to booing crowds at New York City’s Christopher Street Liberation Day Rally in 1973.
Figures like Rivera refused to surrender to the pressure of a hostile society and, in doing so, paved the way for improved LGBTQ+ rights for future generations. Her courageous spirit lives on in the individuals who make up the LGBTQ+ community in São Paulo and other cities where queer identity is still harshly stigmatised. Y’all Better Quiet Down, which positions Pride within its historical context and reaffirms its importance as an event of queer resistance worldwide, combines studio portraits of leading LGBTQ+ performers like Linn da Quebrada alongside photos profiling members of the São Paulo queer community. Opening up a necessary conversation about discrimination of LGBTQ+ individuals globally, the exhibition is a much-needed reminder that we must continue the battle for LGBTQ+ rights across the world.
Y’All Better Quiet Down is on until the 12th of August at Foam, Amsterdam.