After decades of grass root activism, India’s supreme court ruled section 377 is unconstitutional, which criminalized the physical intimacy between two consenting same-sex adults on 6th September 2018. How much has the life of Queer people in India changed after decriminalizing homosexuality? Do they still receive the respect they deserve from society? Are they treated equally? Are queer children growing up without facing any bullies? As much as I and my fellow queer friends experience, coming out of the closet in India is a privilege only enjoyed by the few. Suicide news of LGBT+ people is frequent in India; often, they don’t get the media attention, and there are unsolved trans murder cases that didn’t find any justice. This is why it is essential to talk about Queer people and Queer lives, so it keeps reminding us of our existence in a part of the world that still needs light in accepting diversity and ways of loving living, and sharing. “We walk together under the rainbow” is an attempt to map the alternative ways of living and surviving as two or more people with love and respect for each other, which doesn’t follow the traditional idea of family.
Andreas von Ow, notebook excerpts of the Yellow-Red (Berlin) tour during residency time in Lichtenberg:
10/24/2022, 13:00, arrival at Lichtnebergstudios, handover, get rid of luggage, onward journey, Yellow-Red tour by bike. Instagram: @von_ow__yellow_red, #difficultmission, #rightcolor, #wrongmaterial, #interactionofcolor, #contrast, #context, #affordance, #autumnyellowandred, #autumnleaves, #allcovered….
10/25/2022: Nöldnerplatz, near Max-Taut-Schule: older lady, hard of hearing, smiling at me, former surveyor, pensioner, knows the area qua profession off the top of her head, even in GDR times, approached me because I was fiddling with my city map…interesting exchange, her profession vs. my work and project, which is why I’m all over Berlin and now here in Lichtenberg….
10/28/2022: Instagram: Malchow, the northern Part and at the edge of Berlin-Lichtenberg. #flatearthmodel, #plattenbauromantik, #schönelandschaft, #beautyfullandscape
29.10.2022: Station Nöldnerplatz, ready for the day trip, waiting for S-Bahn to Berlin. Today rather look at exhibitions in Charlottenburg (last chance)? Or the Berlin cityscape in Falkenberg, which is fraying at its edges? The art world versus the world of ordinary consumers, workers, migrants, crisis victims, industrial areas and apartment blocks… I’m torn, both are important and interesting to me, even the balancing act between the two. Ok, gallery viewing. Evening: Walking in the Dong Xuan Center with delicious dinner in Vietnamese restaurant there.
31.10.2022: Wartenberg, Far and wide no bookstore, only large supply centers made of concrete with supermarkets in XXL, as you know them… Population density high, everything off the shelf, everything standard in mass monoculture: concrete blocks of windows and balcony fronts, with many concrete paths in between and parking lots. Pharmacies, betting shops, doner kebab, sushi, Chinese, everything in cheap, good coffee you look just as in vain. Dönermann came with difficulty away from the slot machine, fryer was not even on …
01.11.2022: I can’t get rid of the feeling that there is a high density of frustration, lethargy and exhaustion in the air. With idea and élan one could do a lot. But how can that be in the nature of the people here? Those who grow up in this setting have it all engraved in their bones. Environment shapes…
Delicious apples, old varieties, on overgrown meadow orchard that no one pays attention to, discovered, taken and boiled down. Hammer! Friedrichsfelde, former Rieselfelder, near animal shelter.
04.11.2022: Delivery guy grumbles at me with broken German, why I photograph him because. Have only briefly looked at my bike map, my bike tracker on my phone, which records everything, and tried to orient me. He thought I was observing him…I tried (unsuccessfully) to tell him about my work…his focus was too strong…that’s how much pressure they are under!
05.11.2022: All ways quite exactly driven off, after digital (Biketracker) and analog plan and real place, they become with the transfer on the paper city map to any small hooks, quickly sketched with felt pen, drawings, which inscribe the impression of the way, day’s work, the impressions of the day, in the plan and in the memory…the pictures when looking through afterwards likewise. Memories are overwritten again and again, summarized, changed…To scan each square centimeter was important for it.
06.11.2022: One sees very much if one looks consciously, trains the eye with discipline. One discovers much what one would not have expected (the lubricating oil of looking and seeing further). With expectation one sees less. One also sees much more when the heart is/becomes clear and light. Events that I am experiencing now are right now already passé and perhaps already no longer real, or are they? Or have they never been?
The yellow and red particles remind me just on that day. Then they are put into my large collection containers and the memories of that time in connection with all the other individual color material particles mix together, become one, something that is called past…
In the evening: Excerpt from the Lichtenberg studios. Search for red and yellow now starts again from Friedenau…
