Sofia Pride Arts: Exhibition ‘Open Closeness’
Photo Exhibition during Sofia Pride 2022 about LGBTIQ+ persons living in Ukraine by Lana Yanovska.
Forbidden Colours funded a documentary and photo exhibition by Ukrainian photographer Lana Yanovska during Sofia Pride 2022. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the problems and challenges of the LGBTIQ+ community have become less urgent in the eyes of Ukrainian society. This brought her to the idea of this artistic documentary.
“Gender and sexual identity, androgyny, and belonging to a community have been my artistic focus for the past six years. My latest project with stories of LGBTIQ+ individuals in Ukraine, the country I was born and raised in, is the next step in that journey.”, says Yanovska.
“With this project, I want to show LGBTIQ+ Ukrainians as just people, living their lives and being proud of what they do and who they are.”
“It’s a precious gift to be allowed to document these peoples’ lives – and I will treasure it always.”
Lana Yanovska is a Ukrainian fine arts photographer, a video artist, and a printmaker based in Vöcklabruck (Austria). She studied Art Education (painting and photography under Klaus Lomnitzer) in Frankfurt am Main (Germany).
Through photography and moving film, Yanovska explores the perception of gender and sexuality and challenges the viewer to look more closely at themselves through her work.
The curator of the exhibition was Peter Vulchev.
The exhibition was opened by First Secretary of the Embassy of the Kingdom of Belgium in Bulgaria Joris Beckers and the executive director of Forbidden Colours NPO Rémy Bonny on June 16th, 2022.
