Pride Photo X Noorderlicht: Gender, Pride and Prejudice A Love Letter to Queer Resilience

Junior talent and professionals
Gender, Pride and Prejudice – A Love Letter to Queer Resilience can be visited at Noorderlicht Studio from 21 to 30 June 2024. The exhibition combines the work of junior talent and professionals. Fifteen Noorderpoort students from the Art & Multimedia department took part in an education programme at Noorderlicht. The mbo students have been working on AI and gender identity for the past few weeks and are displaying the results of this visual research in prints and installations in the gallery. Two of those students have been working on the design of Noorderlicht’s entrance.

Pride Photo Award professionals are featured in the exhibition on life-size video portraits where they talk about how they work and what pride and queerness means to them. This offers a wonderful insight into the colourful, diverse and multifaceted international LGBTQIA+ community.

Opening
The opening of the exhibition will take place on Friday 21 June 2024 at 16:00. After the official opening by Groningen’s alderman for culture, Kirsten de Wrede, both the exhibition in Noorderlicht and the impressive outdoor Pride Photo Award exhibition at the Akerk can be viewed. This outdoor exhibition, which features work by the winners of Pride Photo Award 2024, can already be admired from 14 June. For a sneak preview, you can already take a look at the websites of Pride Photo and the winners of Pride Photo Award 2024.

Programme opening:
16:00 – 16:15: Arrival and reception
16:15: Official start of the meeting
Welcome speech by Roosje Klap, director Noorderlicht
Speech by Alderman of Culture, Kirsten de Wrede
Speech by Samira Damato on Pride Photo, head of exhibitions and competition of Pride Photo
Explanation on the education programme of mbo students of the Art & Multimedia Department Noorderpoort by Roosje Klap
Official opening of the exhibition
17:00: Music provided by students of Noorderpoort Art & Multimedia
18:30: End

The event is public and we expect around 50 to 80 visitors at this opening, including students, their friends and family, the makers of Pride Photo, the organisations Noorderlicht, Pride Photo and Noorderpoort, people from the LGBTQIA+ community, both from the region and beyond, and art-minded people, such as Minerva students and teachers.

About Noorderlicht
Noorderlicht is an international platform for lens-based media, which in addition to the biennial Noorderlicht Biennial and its own publishing house, has been organising exhibitions, and talent development programmes since 1990. Based in Groningen, Noorderlicht manifests itself in the coming two years from the triangle art – society – technology. With, among others, the exhibition Pixel Perceptions (autumn 2024) and the biennial HU/MAN MACHINE (summer and autumn 2025) in the three Northern provinces, Noorderlicht asks the question: ‘Are we still the masters of our imagination?’

Roosje Klap, director Noorderlicht: “At Noorderlicht, we see increasing contradictions playing an increasingly prominent role in the social debate, where we know that groups like the LGBTQIA+ are losing out under the influence of immense technological changes. We are proud to partner with the talents of Noorderpoort and the professional organisation Pride Photo Award, to not only help bring change but also to be shaped by it, while contributing to social and cultural issues of our communities. After all, photography is the eyewitness of our current times.”

Pride Photo Foundation
Founded in 2010, Pride Photo is a Dutch organisation that organises an annual outdoor photo exhibition highlighting the diversity and wealth of inspiring stories from the LGBTQIA+ community. With an all-new team, a new programme and new artistic leadership, Pride Photo is taking a new direction in 2024. Besides a new exhibition design, Pride Photo will connect with existing art institutions throughout the Netherlands, launch an audio tour (with presenter and programme maker Anne Fleur Schipper) and introduce an education programme.

Zindzi Zwietering, director Pride Photo: “I am incredibly excited to continue building this unique organisation, one of the world’s only photographic archives full of LGBTQIA+ stories. The power of stories is paramount to me: stories can be used to inspire, to humanise, to give meaning and to create safe spaces. I hope to grow Pride Photo into an international platform for and by the queer community.”