Here in the UK we're celebrating the 50th anniversary of Pride UK today, which first took place on the 1st of July 1972. So I've created this artwork to mark this anniversary, titled 'Face2Face (Non-binary Genderfluid) Lesbians: Marching Together - Remembering and Celebrating Pride UK 50 Years'. I've depicted them participating in the anniversary Pride March taking place tomorrow, 2nd July 2022, walking amongst the pride placards in the parade.
Their shirt collars are coloured in the lesbian and non-binary flags. They are sharing the flags between them, across their respective collars: the left collar of the lesbian on the left has the upper colours of the fully inclusive lesbian flag on it (3 oranges to white) which matches up with the left collar of her wife on the right, which has the rest of stripes in that flag on it (white through to 3 pinks, ending with a purple-looking darker shade of pink). The same is true of their right-hand side collars: the right-hand side one on the lesbian on the left has the yellow and white of the non-binary flag, which is completed with the purple and black stripes on the right-hand side collar on her wife on the right.
They are wearing a progress rainbow flag tie, which incorporates the brown and black stripes representing BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnicities) / POC (people of colour) / indigenous people within the LGBTQIAPD+ community; the feathers are the Two-Spirit symbol (Native American) which explicitly represents LGBTQIAPD+ indigenous peoples; light blue, light pink and white representing the trans community and I've included the intersex flag by placing their purple circle on the rainbow flag's yellow background, which is a very similar shade of yellow as the background colour on the intersex flag.
On their lavender shirts, they are wearing LGBTQIAPD+ pride badges and stickers: the Jewish LGBT+ rainbow flag; the demiwoman flag (pink and grey) with the demiwoman symbol on it (like the ♀️but with half a bar across) and the womanflux symbol on it (like the ♀️ but with two angled bars off the circle); the demifluidflux flag just above the genderfluid symbol 🌊; and the pangender flag (pale yellow, pinks and a white stripe) with the pangender symbol on it, to raise awareness of some lesser-known LGBTQIAPD+ identities that are relevant to my Face2Face art series and my own gender identities.
Here's a close-up of the badges and stickers on their shirts:
I've designed all their attire, the placards and the typography fonts myself.
This artwork is the result of my research during Pride Month last month into LGBTQIAPD+ history and the history of Pride UK, which has informed my symbolism, design, colour schemes and composition. The placards are based on those actually carried during Pride UK marches. The ones in thick black ink on white cardboard have famous slogans from the 70's and the 80's. Their colour scheme is black and white to evoke the black and white photography of Pride UK marches in history and to generally give the earlier marches a more historical feel. The placards depicting the Pride marches/parades in the latter 20th century (eg the adoption, age of consent and army ban sign) and 21st century (eg L with the T sign, gay marriage, ban conversion therapy, say gay signs) are in colour, to reflect changes in photography, making the signs brighter and stronger coloured as photos became clearer and more vivid with the rising popularity of digital photography.
Here's a close-up of the top section of the artwork, where you can see the placards from different decades in more detail:
I'll be back to discuss this in more detail later! 🙂🖼️
