How do people live in a country that for more than a hundred years has prohibited them by law to be themselves, to love who they want and to dress how they want? We travelled to India to meet people from the LGBTIQ community, to get to know them and to listen to them.
Until the end of 2018, a single paragraph of India’s penal code, Section 377, marked homosexual acts out as a criminal offence.
For over 150 years, “Section 377” has been part of the Indian Penal Code. The section was introduced during British colonial rule in India in 1861, and established “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” as a crime punishable by law. Homosexual acts have been criminalised for a long time since. In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that use of the section to victimise gays and lesbians was unconstitutional. It was thereby repealed.
We visited them with the hope of better understanding this country and its contrasts. We didn’t expect the elimination of one paragraph to change the mindset of 1.3 billion people. However, it wasn’t until we spent time in Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and New Delhi that we came to understand how frequently violent assaults still occur, or how it must feel to have received official permission to love whomever and however you want and yet still have to hide this from your own family.
Find out more on the following website: https://insideindiasqueer.community
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Gina Bolle is a visual artist and freelance photographer from Munich, DE who currently lives in and runs a studio near Marburg, DE. Her multimedia installations and assemblages deal with the dynamics of control and oppression in intimate spaces. She is particularly interested in the intentions behind certain photographs and the impact of visual memory on each individual. She holds a Master of Arts from ECAL/Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne.
🤍 Say hi: hello@ginabolle.com +49 162 268 73 40 Instagram: @gina_bolle
Interviews and articles: Innovate Grant 2023: Honorable Mention — Art, Bowie creators: Social Injustice Through The Lens
Exhibitions and residency: Villa Heike, Berlin, DE; Rudolphsplatz, Marburg, DE; Installation, Sculpture and New Media Art Residency at School of Visual Arts, New York City, US; Kunstverein Aichach, DE; dkp / Spülraum, Lucerne, CH; BØWIE Gallery, Geneva, CH; CICA Museum, KR; MiM, Munich, DE; Das Zwo, Munich, DE; amongst others
Nominations and awards: Working grant from Marburg, DE; Nominated for the Förderpreis 2024 der Landeshauptstadt München, DE; nominated for Kunstförderpreis 2023 at Aichacher Kunstverein, DE; Innovate Grant 2023, Honorable Mention; US; Winner Belfast Photofestival category „Photobook“ for „377. Inside India’s Queer Community“, IRL; VG Bildkunst, Neustart Kultur, Scholarship Programme 2021, DE
Photography clients & publications: ZDF Deutschland, Kammerspiele München, ZEIT Verlag, BISS Magazin, DER SPIEGEL, Stadt München, Münchener Biennale, GEO Wissen, Focus Magazin, Goethe Institut, Aktion Mensch, amongst others
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