Russia’s LGBT community get the chance to show pride with a rainbow
Russia’s LGBT community can now protest against the country’s homophobic laws with a rainbow.
A group of Dutch artists have launched a new protest project that will enable Russians to fight against the country’s notorious law against gay “propaganda”, without breaking it.
The new app, Raduga (Russian for rainbow), tracks weather forecasts across country and sends users an alert when a rainbow is expected close to them.
Users are then encouraged to photograph it and post it on social media.
Referring to the political protest of Pyotr Pavlensky, who nailed his scrotum to Red Square, one of the project’s creators, Cecilia Hendrikx, said: “The beauty of the project is that it can provoke commentary on the political situation, but it does so with humor, without nailing one’s scrotum to the pavement of Red Square.
“It is more poetic and less dangerous.”
In 2013, Russia made it illegal to expose minors to materials promoting “non-traditional sexual relations” or presenting “distorted ideas about the equal social value of traditional and non-traditional sexual relationships”.
Raduga was conceived shortly after this and is the first time the group have decided to tackle homophobia directly.
“Basically, we do political art. We are interested in places where there is tension in the relations between society and the authorities, anywhere in the world,” one of the artists, Tara Karpinski, added.
The artists said they will not be disappointed if the only result of their project is the appearance of more rainbow photographs on the Internet.
Ms Hendrikx said: “In all our projects, we leave to the audience the freedom of interpretation.
In March, Calvin Klein were reported to Russian authorities for allegedly breaking the gay propaganda law.
