FotoNem Project enables vulnerable LGBTQIAP+ people in Rio de Janeiro

The project PhotoNeither aims to rewrite stories of people who suffer from exclusion in society, the program helps in the development of language, art, entrepreneurship, social relations and communication of the LGBTQIAP+ community in Rio de Janeiro.

Since June of that year, the project, created by the photographer Hevelin Costais at the Centro Municipal de Artes Hélio Oiticica on Wednesday afternoons and receives 30 vulnerable people from the LGBTQIAP+ community.

“When CasaNem started I understood the importance of training in photography for the LGBTQAPN+ community because you saw a lot of ‘cishetero’ photographers going to photograph the people who lived there in the house. People participated in the project, but we didn’t know where those photos were going, we didn’t have a contract”said Hevelin on the podcast straight talk.

With this point of view, the photographer noticed an opportunity for training, generating the possibility of income and financial autonomy for these people, who, for the most part, are part of trans and transvestite communities.

Ira Barilloone of the teachers on the project, said: “It was very interesting to observe the class looking at these spaces as possibilities for creating an image. We were researching both the aspect of image composition, both how to organize yourself to photograph, these technical aspects, and what it means to photograph on the street”.

The work done at the FotoNem Laboratory aims at creating a repertoire that will embody a collective exhibition, with images produced by the group.

In conversation with Planeta FODA, Hevelin states that the choice of works will happen collaboratively, since “Curatorship is part of the class learning process”. The exhibition of the projects is expected to be held in January 2024 at the Centro Municipal de Artes Hélio Oiticica, located in the center of Rio de Janeiro.