Words from a spectrum: Based on LGBTQ community of Bangladesh

Course Code and Name: MSJ11215 Convergence Communication 2

This semester, the curriculum integration theme was “The Social Norms Theory”. The theory suggests our behavior is influenced by misconceptions of how our peers think and act, which basically means we often find it hard to accept something that is a bit different from what we perceive as normal. We go along with the traditional way of thinking that our elders have injected in our mind.

Our group came up with the idea of representing LGBTQ community of Bangladesh because we believe this is one social aspect, that has been ignored for way too long now. LGBTQ community includes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and queer people of society. They often face negativity from people due to their different sexual preferences, behavior and also because do not fit into the “normal” criteria. In Bangladesh, under 377 penal code it is written that whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description that is, hard labor or simple for a term which may extend to ten years. Something that is natural and just a simple choice of life has apparently been criminalized in a democratic country, due to which a lot of people have still hidden their sexual preference so that they can survive.

Hence, we thought to bring out the stories of these people who live under the radar due to societal pressure, and the best way to bring them forward was to know their struggle in their words only. Hence, we asked the LGBTQ community people to write letters anonymously where they wrote about their struggle, their untold feelings and their desires. The whole process took us about a month. At first, we had to find out how to reach out to these people. One of our groupmates, Chowdhury Mehnaz Afrin Shreya, decided to meet some people of this community through an event called “Gay Meet up” where she personally went to them and talked about our installation idea. We got a very positive response and got around 20 letters from the meet up session. I, personally, went on to talk to some LGBT activists and aquitances from where I got few letters. The other teammates also managed few letters from various sources, but the biggest portion of letters were taken from Google form that we circulated in the internet. At the end, we gathered more than 100 letters, out of which we took out 110 letters for exhibition.

One of the most important and difficult part was the layout design of our installation art. Considering we wanted to make this an interactive art form, it needed to be asthetically beautiful and people should get the message in the first glance as well. Initially, we decided to use a wall full of white envelopes where we would keep the letters. Later on, one of our teammates, Raisa Naushin, came up with the idea of arranging the envelopes in rainbow color scheme which is also the color of LGBTQ flag.

After designing the layout came another challenging part, which was, finding the right materials for our installation. We needed seven colors of envelope, PVC pipes for the stand where we kept the envelopes and ropes to hang them properly. We also needed flower pots so that the pillars of the stand can be stable and other materials like glue, spray paint, tape, papers etc.

The first difficult part of making the installation was to find the envelopes of every color. We needed 20 envelopes of each 7 colors and we found only find 3-4 colored envelopes in store, rest were made by ourselves and it took us two whole days. Then came the second and most crucial of them all, making a stable stand. As we did most of our work in one of our teammates Raisa Naushin’s home, we decided to first have a trial before we set it up in our exhibition venue. So, we made demo stand on her rooftop so we have an idea of the way it needed to be set up. So, an entire day was dedicated to make the demo of our installation where we not only made the stand but also hung all the 110 envelopes in the stand, maintaining the color scheme. While making the demo we also improvised a little. For instance, using pieces of paper behind envelopes so it does not fall off while taking out the letters and also putting soil in the flower pots so the stand stays steady. The improvisation also increased our initial budget and eventually we had to spend more than what we thought was required. On that very same day, we finished other works like writing the letters in hand as most were sent through internet, coloring the poles etc. every work was divided between ourselves which made it easy to carry out and finally we were all ready to install it on our exhibition venue i.e. Gallery 2 of Shilpokola Academy.

On 6th September 2019, we installed our work in the venue as per planned. We needed a corner to install our work as the whole stand needed to be standing against two walls and luckily, we found the right corner to install our project. Although some works were done beforehand but it still took us about 4-5 hours to finish the entire thing. Most times went on tying up the ropes with the stand and sorting out the letters. Considering we had more than 110 letters but had the space for only 110 letters we were unable to exhibit them all and kept 110 letters which we thought were more impactful. One of another important aspects of our was proper lighting. Considering it had a very bright outlook we needed to proper lighting to catch the attention of audience and we managed to get the proper lighting as well, which made our installation exactly like what we have planned from the first day.

On 7th September,2019 was our first day of exhibition. The exhibition started at 11 am in the morning and was inaugurated by Professor Dr Jude William Genilo, Head of Media Studies and Journalism department and chief guest Ms.Tropa Majumdar. After which, the exhibition was open for general public to visit and see. Not only the students or faculties, but people from various background were present in the exhibition. And fortunately, a lot of people were seen giving positive responses. We also invited few LGBTQ activists to see our project who also gave us positive feedback. An LGBTQ activist from Rangpur who came to see our installation was very overwhelmed and praised us for our work. He mentioned that it was an great initiative from people who do not belong to this community yet tried to give out a message which a lot of people often ignore. However, our target audience was the mass people, the people who often overlook this issue or make fun of it. Although there were few people in exhibition who chose not to read the letters after reading the description given beside the artwork, some were actually very surprised to see a work that was entirely about LGBTQ community. Jabir Misbah, a student of ULAB, told us often LGBTQ community people cannot share their words and this gave them a way to tell their words to the people. On the same context Waif Aziz Sattar, lecturer of Media studies and Journalism department, told us this was a great platform since the people of this community could express their words comfortably considering their names were not revealed as often it becomes risky for them due to societal pressure. He also believes this may even change other people’s perspectives. Another visitor named Zuri found this installation very inspiring and thought this was a much-needed platform as people of this community could actually share their feelings.

Overall, we had positive feedback from most people, along with few negative feedbacks and ridicule of course. The spectators were curious enough to know about this as it looked very simple compared to the other installation ones. We also came across few spectators who spent hours to read all the letters and some even read all of them or took pictures of the letters so that they can read later.

Our main motive behind this installation art was to create a conversation among people. We wanted them to acknowledge the fact that LGBTQ community also exists in Bangladesh and their voices have been unheard for too long now. While doing this installation, we learnt a lot about people of this particular community and we knew about their stories and we believe we were able to give the message to the people. Although, we also believe if we had more time, we could’ve done it in a bigger scale. But nevertheless, many of the visitors thought this was a very fresh idea and suggested us to continue to work on this matter in near future. Our teammates have already decided to archive the letters as one of the LGBTQ activists was keen to archive them in a library in London. Our university faculties played a vital role in making this installation a success as they not only supported but praised us for our work. Overall, the team effort was great and we were successful in bringing out the message to the audience which we believe would at least bring some changes in people’s thought process.