This Pride month presents a sobering contrast between Ukrainian democracy and Russian authoritarianism. Ukraine, although a significantly more conservative place than its European neighbors, offers legal protections against discrimination for sexual minorities; thousands marched in Kyiv’s 2021 Pride parade. (This year’s edition was moved to nearby Warsaw, Poland.) During his decades in power, however, Putin has mounted an accelerating crusade against “nontraditional sexual relationships,” with “anti-propaganda” laws forbidding any mention of gay relationships. In Chechnya, anti-gay purges have led to the murder, torture, imprisonment, and disappearance of suspected homosexuals.
“As queer Ukrainians,” says Sofiia Lapina, the co-founder and president of UkrainePride, “we also fight to stay visible so that Russian homophobic and transphobic propaganda does not enter the mainstream and erase the progress we’ve made ever since the fall of the USSR.”
“Putin’s anachronistic fever dream of a grand Russia has little real life connection,” Swedish artist Karl Holmqvist says. His design features the text “LGBTQ +I <3 U.” The deliberate ambiguity of the plus sign and the letters themselves allows for a declaration both of love to LGBTQ+ people and of that community’s love for Ukraine.
This dual fight—for the preservation of Ukraine’s freedom and protections against anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric around the world—is at the heart of the project. As the war in Ukraine rages on, the fog of misinformation and violence threatens to obscure on-the-ground realities. For his design, Rirkrit Tiravanija printed “shine light in dark places” in black, blocky letters across the front. On the back, the same phrase is written in Ukrainian.
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