LGBT Graffiti Group: Pride in Rainbow
Lately a more colorful sort of graffiti has graced our streets. This rainbow-filled stencil art of prominent singers or animals spewing rainbows carries a message of tolerance for the city’s LGBT community. It’s the work of the anonymous group Pride in Rainbow—Grace Tsoi talks to one of its members.
HK Magazine: How long have you been doing this?
Pride in Rainbow: We started out back in 2011. It was actually around the time of Hong Kong Pride Parade—we wanted to do something before it. We started out as two people, and both interested in making art as a form of activism. Our current crew is formed of three to four regularly involved members.
HK: Why the anonymity?
PR: The main reason is we want to solely focus on our art. I feel like if we put personal identities to Pride in Rainbow, people will be more fascinated with who we are, than with what we are doing. Besides, street art is considered illegal, so it’s risky to be out there.
HK: So, who shows up in your stencils?
PR: We wanted to do artists that are either openly out, or openly support the LGBT community. Anthony Wong and Leslie Cheung are the most obvious examples—especially Anthony, because he has been so active in terms of LGBT rights lately. He really did help us in a way, as he took a picture of himself with our stencil art.
HK: Is it difficult to pick local artists?
PR: If you are asking if there are more artists, there’s a limit to how many we can do. We will probably make some of Denise Ho in the future. We are also interested in doing artists from different countries—that’s why we have John Lennon too. But it’s really local artists that really stick in people’s minds.
HK: Had any encounters with the police?
PR: We ran into the police on the day before last year’s pride parade, while sticking our rainbows and animals all along the path of the march. We were careless because we were concentrating, and didn’t look around. One of us looked up and saw two police officers only a few feet away, so we ran. They didn’t chase us. We looked back, and they were checking out our animals. We’re a lot more cautious now; we always have more than two people in action. One or two just keep a lookout, while the other one does the art. One of the team pretends to be part of the regular presence on the streets. You never know who will go out of their way and call the police on us.
HK: Have you grappled with the fact that your art will vanish?
PR: If you are doing street art, you have to know that it will be gone at any moment. Technically, it’s still illegal. I am definitely upset when people take it down, but I expect it will happen someday. I just hope that it won’t be too fast. Some of our earliest spray paint has been painted over already; a lot of stickers have been taken down, peeled off and cleaned away. I am actually very surprised that a lot of the animals are still around. The stencils have not been covered yet, because they are fairly recent.
HK: What do you think of LGBT rights in Hong Kong?
PR: I have definitely seen some improvement in two years. Even in the past year, there’s been a lot of attention to LGBT rights. I think that’s a good thing. Marriage equality would be something we would want to strive for. Last year, if you asked me if it was going to happen any time soon, I would probably have said no—Hong Kong is still very conservative. But recently, a lot of the media is talking about it, and I feel like it has started to become a mainstream topic. It’s always the place to start if you want actual changes. Maybe in a couple of years, we’ll see some policy changes.
Learn more at www.facebook.com/PrideInRainbow.
