Sunday, December 18, 2016

EVALUATION of 1ST NORDIC RAINBOW HISTORY & ART MONTH -- October, 2016

Stockholm -- Discussions, cultural presentations, poetry, art, films and evaluation of the 1st Nordic Rainbow History & Art Month - October, 2016 (Umeå-Stockholm-Vilnius) took place in the Swedish capital December 10-13 -- co-sponsored by Tupilak (Nordic rainbow culture workers), Bears International and the Nordic Association-Sweden.

The gatherings included a Swedish "skål" to the December 10th International Human Rights Day at Sidetrack pub (one of the same venues used in October) and meetings at the PositHIVa Group local, the Old Town island pub Secret Garden and the downtown offices of the Nordic Association, with a presentaton there also of Jukka Aminoff, managing director of Noak's Ark working with HIV/AIDS information and support, describing its history, use of art, music and films and future plans.

Art exhibtions included works from Belarus, Ukraine and samples from all the Nordic nations from the ILGCN/Tupilak collections as well as "Rainbow Flowers" by Sweden's Kennet Lindquist. Live music and song at the final session was provided by Sweden's Christine Zawall, singing in Polish.

It was decided that the 2nd Nordic Rainbow History Month be expanded to include other Nordic cities -- both in the western part of the vast Nordic region and all the Nordic nations on the eastern side of the Baltic -- , more LGBT organizations in the Nordic zone, more LGBT refugees and immigrants, and more programs of Nordic-Belarus co-operation. The Nordic month organizers are also to work for increased exchanges with other LGBT history month colleagues in Budapest, Edinburgh, London and elsewhere.

It was also decided to encourage the search for Nordic grants for Swedish-Danish and Swedish-Icelandic rainbow cultural exchange in 2017 and Swedish Institute support for more Swedish-Belarus LGBT cultural exchange as well as other sources.

Also at the last session, a statement was read out from ILGCN Orfeo Imago (for art and photography) 2016 award winner, Denmark's Birthe Havmöller:

"I am honoured and happy to share the award with the organisers of the Nordic & Baltic Queer Art Network. Feminine Moments is a child of the end of the 1990's and the website was born in 2003, when I finally was confident that the Internet was working well enough for my use as my main source for materials and research about queer feminist art and fine art made by lesbian, bisexual and queer women artists around the world.

"Feminine Moments (art blog and resource site) is my gift to the art world, the homosexual communities and the queer feminist artists around the world. And as the editor of the website, I still feel it is important to push queer art and the women artists as they are only marginally more visible than they were a decade ago.'

Rainbow Flowers by Kennet Lindquist (copyright)
Birthe Havmöller, Denmark   
Christine Zawall (photo by Kennet Lindquist)
More information:  bill@tupilak.org     www.tupilak.org    www.ilgcn.tupilak.org