Pink Portraits Revisited – A photography project to celebrate LGBTQ+ people working ‘Behind The Lens’:
October 2022 was a whirlwind- I had just finished my first film festival with Iris Prize which was so much fun and much bigger than I anticipated, but I wasn’t sure what to expect for the rest of the year. Chats in the office led to us finding the theme for LGBT+ History Month 2023 was ‘Behind the Lens’, which was an exciting discovery as it’s perfect for Iris!
Within days we were starting to work on what would be a massive project- this is my retelling of a frantic couple of months. It was Berwyn (Festival Founder and Director and my line manager) that suggested the connection to the original 2010 Pink Portraits, but this time instead of photographing those established in their career we wanted to take this as an opportunity to celebrate the next generation of creatives just beginning their journey.
From the beginning it was clear that this project would be stronger with partners, so setting up meetings with organisations and seeing that they were just as invested in our vision was great. We worked with Ffotogallery to find a photographer: they put out an open call for applications, and we were delighted to have so many high-quality submissions. A decision was made between Iris and Ffotogallery to work with Dylan Lewis Thomas, who said “I’m very grateful and excited to have been selected for this commission – as a proud gay man, I’m thrilled to be photographing such inspiring and skilled LGBTQ+ talent”.
Our main goal was to have the portraits displayed around Cardiff, as the project was one about making queer people in these industries visible – a celebration of their work and also to inspire other young LGBTQ+ people who are looking to enter similar fields of work. We had already worked with JackArts during the October festival, so we got in touch with them again and booked 10 large poster sites for the 10 subjects of the portraits. Cardiff University was one of the principal partners for the Pink Portraits Revisited. This meant that as well as the JackArts sites we could also display the portraits in University buildings: on digital screens in the Centre for Student Life and School of Journalism, Media and Culture.
The University of South Wales Atrium building also has the portraits displayed on screens and printed in two locations, as another one of our partners. With all this in place, we needed to find our 10 sitters! Jackarts posters designs were needed 2 weeks in advance prior to launch day. Dylan the photographer wanted to work through the medium of film, and it was the first few weeks of 2023.
To get everything ready for launch day there was a very tight turnaround, to get the sitters on board with the project and get their portraits taken and developed. This led to a chaotic week of organising people/locations/schedules. Coordinating this was the most stressful aspect of the project- it was vital we engaged with enough people to get the 10 subjects, and film is an unforgiving medium if anything was to go wrong.
It was important to fully inform the people we were reaching out to of the public nature of the project, as this level of visibility meant that some people were not able to take part. Even though it is so important to have visible LGBTQ+ people in the world, we needed to consider the individual risk for participating and that may be a more prominent concern for some members of the community with intersectional identities. Even though this aspect of the portraits was a bit frantic, it was lovely to be able to connect with lots of queer creatives.
The 10 people that were included have been great to work with and I know from chatting with them how much being a part of a project like this means to them. One of the sitters Bradley told us that “being a part of the Pink Portraits revisited has been the top of one mountain and the bottom of one where I become a voice to my younger self, and hopefully inspire the next person to be unapologetically authentic to who they are”.
Another aspect of the support from Cardiff University was hosting an official launch event for the Pink Portraits Revisited in the Centre for Student Life on the 13th February. It was a joyous event attended by over 100 guests, which included speeches from Colin Riordan the Vice Chancellor of Cardiff Uni and our very special guest Sue Sanders co-founder of LGBT+ History Month
The aim of the launch was to hold a celebration for both the sitters and the wider queer community. Having A1 printed versions of the portraits on easels, which were revealed ceremoniously by each of the sitters, brought a spotlight to young LGBTQ+ talent and fulfilled our aim of making the sitters feel special. Jess was one of the sitters for the project: “it’s a privilege to be a part of the Pink Portraits revisited. Being able to stand alongside such influential members of the LGBTQ+ community is so inspiring to me. I had the best time and met so many amazing people, it’ll be an evening I’ll definitely remember”.