Honorable Mention
veils of tolerance
DESCRIPTION
Indonesia has a growing hardline group of religious people. Politicians try to gear up with these fanatic groups for the sake of populist election gains. With the upcoming elections in 2019, the scapegoating of the LGBTQ community flares up once again. It goes as far as blaming the LGBTQ community for natural disasters like the recent earthquakes and tsunami in the region. The city of Yogyakarta on Java Island, long known as a tolerant place for people of all likes from allover Indonesia, is rapidly growing into a much more narrow minded community. In 2015 anti LGBT banners were polluting the streets. Politicians suggested to send homosexual people to doctors and healers. The national society of psychiatrists officially classified LGBTQ people as mentally ill.
Luckily not everyone agrees.
This photo, veils of tolerance, is a bitter sweet wink to both groups.
AUTHOR
Born in Belgium, but in search of different shades of light, I traveled. And I was fascinated again and again. I have lived in Jogjakarta, Indonesia for 23 years and I am now based in Seoul, South Korea. I am submerged in beauty, distate, noise, silence, peace, violence, poverty, luxury, happiness and disaster. My surroundings are sensual surfeit, a place that makes people humans and haven for someone with a camera and a desire to tell stories. I am forced to explore and challenge my cultural luggage that defines aesthetics.
As a photographer I play with reality and make decisions about how I represent the world.
The stories I tell are real, or not.
