Life Stories

Being able to be yourself, love freely, and live as you are. That is what every person desires — but unfortunately, it is still not a given for everyone. BredaPhoto and Pride Photo join forces to pay tribute to the life stories of queer individuals who choose their own path against the odds, even if that sometimes happens later in life.

With five impressive photography projects by international artists, new work from photography students, and an outdoor exhibition, BredaPhoto and PridePhoto aim to inspire a broad audience, including queer individuals and allies, and to celebrate our shared diversity.

Five special photography projects:

I Remember Everything is a long-term project about the 35-year friendship between Danny Abood and photographer Julie Sundberg. Julie’s photographs show Danny at various impactful moments in his life: as a handsome young man, in drag, fighting with drugs, living with a positive HIV diagnosis, on his deathbed after a battle with cancer, and all the moments in between.

When Andrés Gregorio Pérez looked again into their personal family albums, they realised that their true selves were not visible in the photos. Pérez wanted to change that. Dead Family is an artistic exploration of the role of the family archive, undertaken by Pérez together with participants from the LGBTQIA+ community.

With Invisible Border  Chiara Fabbro pays tribute to Dimitri, who walks through her hometown on the Greek island of Lesbos wearing a stunning red dress, head held high. Her photographs depict the happy ending of a lifelong struggle against conservative parents and villagers and mental health issues, culminating in being able to be herself as a woman.

Since its founding in 1958, NASA actively rejected future employees and astronauts based on their sexuality. Although NASA launched a special LGBTQIA+ programme in 2016, none of the approximately 600 astronauts who have gone into space to date have been openly queer. In The Gay Space Agency, Mackenzie Calle humorously criticises the exclusion of queer astronauts.

For Mit Euren Spuren, which can be translated as ‘with your footprints’, a collective of six photographers, brought together by Francesco Giordano, collaborated with eight queer seniors. Due to fear of societal stigma and discrimination, many had kept their sexual identities hidden for a long time and never had the opportunity to share their experiences. This project sheds light on their stories.

Local women from Breda portrayed by young talent
This final project Mit Euren Spuren gets a special follow-up in Breda for Levenslijnen: five photography students from KABK (The Hague) and Sint Joost (Breda) highlight the lives of six queer residents of Breda. Like Maria, who now, at her age, realises she always wanted to be free from gender norms, or Will and Thieu, who already in 1994 in Breda exchanged vows before the legalisation of same-sex marriage.

The participating locations are:
- Clublokaal
(open daily from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.)
- Project space in the Chassé Theater
(open daily from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.)
- Nieuwe Veste Centrum
(open Monday to Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.)
- Park Valkenberg
open continuously