Exhibition on the Ocassion of the International Coming Out Day, October 11 – Masks are for the Closet

The context
On October 11, 1988, the first Coming Out Day was held in Washington, with half of million of LGBT persons taking part in demonstrations demanding equal rights. Coming Out Day is a day of stepping out of the closet of shame and hiding one’s gender and sexual identity. This day has been celebrated for 22 years all over the world through activist interventions in public space.

The idea
Idea behind this day is to raise awareness in public on the rights, needs and problems of LGBT people and to empower LGBT persons to live their identities and their love freely. Awareness, empowerment and visibility can be raised in many ways, and this year, the team of Sarajevo Open Centre has decided to do it through art.

Exhibition
This years’ Coming Out Day will be celebrated through interactive exhibition Maske su za ormar (Masks are for the Closet), which consists of 20 masks, placed in space and in a closet, 20 photographs, 20 personal records of feelings of hiding one’s identity, and the closet, which visitors of the exhibition can enter, and feel the claustrophobia of hiding through audio records. We want to turn the attention to the multifaceted anxiety of living under the guise of normative sexuality and gender identites.

Venue
The exhibition will be opened on October 9, 2013, 6 p.m. in Art Cinema Kriterion (Obala Kulina bana 2).