It’s totally fine if you don’t live in a city where you can find the Statue of Liberty, Manneken Pis, The Thinker, Christ the Redeemer, or Tutankhamun! All you need to do is look for a statue that matters to your city or country. You will find your own Little Mermaid, or Molly Malone…
“Don’t Nuke the Climate”! – The Little Mermaid, Ms Molly Malone.
Statues of public figures, fairytale characters, myths, poets, and writers are placed in city centres or parks where a lot of people pass by every day. But what if one day people wake up to a different statue? A statue dressed up? A statue with a message? A statue hosting a picnic party for the LGBT community? They will definitely take notice!
This is also a low-cost action that one person could do. The images shared online are still as impactful as the visual message that matters.
All you need to do is start looking for your favourite statue in your town or city!
Poland’s Statues Dress in Rainbows
For IDAHOT 2014, Polish LGBT rights group Fabryka Równości (Equality Factory) chose to highlight their city’s long history of cultural diversity and tolerance, suggesting that if cultural heroes were alive today, they would be against homophobia.
“If Tuwim Lived Today, He’d Be Against Homophobia”
Famous Polish poet, Julian Tuwim, affirms
his support for LGBT rights. May 17, 2014.
In the lead-up to IDAHOT, they explained:
“This year, the Polish LGBT community faces a big challenge – we have become victims of an all-out assault by hierarchs of Polish clergy and neofacist groups, who would like to see us silenced and start to ‘guard’ people against ‘gender ideology.’ The great figures of the city, as well as common citizens, will speak out against this strategy to legitimize hate and to silence the LGBT community, as well as against hate itself.
Łódź is a city born out of diversity and tolerance – it stems from four different cultures. To underline this fact, on 16.05 the statues standing in the city, preserving the memory of great city patrons, will be decorated with rainbows of flowers and balloons, with mottos speaking out against hate attached.”
And in Ireland too…
Oscar Wilde dressed in the rainbow flag, May 17, 2013. © LGBT youth group Shout (Galway, Ireland).
For May 17, 2013, LGBTQI youth group ‘Shout Galway’ organised a similar action – making their city’s statue of Oscar Wilde a proper queer icon today, by dressing him in the colours of the rainbow flag (and adding rainbow chalk drawings next to it, too).
Using Iconic Buildings
The news that the Trump administration had banned a list of words from budget documents, including words such as “transgender,” “diversity,” and “evidence-based,” inspired campaigners to use Trump-owned buildings as a canvas for their tactic. The Human Rights Campaign projected the banned words on Trump’s buildings to affirm that, as a community, LGBTQ people will never be erased.
Projections are a disruptive yet relatively safe action as they don’t cause any damage to iconic buildings.
Rainbow bridge
For the IDAHOT 2014, the Brisbane Story Bridge in Queensland, Australia, was lit up in a rainbow. Learn more about how this happened through our insider interview.
