Storytelling & Campaigning

In collaboration with GoWest - Association for LGBTIQ*, I designed and executed a storytelling campaign to raise awareness of the diverse biographies queer folks in Vorarlberg. Our Mission: Finding one queer story of each of the 96 villages and towns in Vorarlberg. For a year, I interviewed queer people, their families and allies all over Vorarlberg. My goal was to expand the binary of two seemingly contradictory narratives of LGBTIQ* people living in Vorarlberg: Either as a victim of oppression or as someone who claims to have never experienced any discrimination. The campaign tells stories of courageous marriage proposals, queer activism in the Alps, worried and loving parents, or owning a traditional Gasthaus while transitioning.

Mission Pride was a campaign that concurred with a series of hate crimes against LGBTIQ* people in Vorarlberg. In many villages, rainbow flags were burned down. By showing the solidarity of Vorarlberg’s citizens in many villages, Mission Pride turned into a hopeful and strong response against discrimination.

The following principles guided me during this project:

• Placing the story: By placing the stories in the hometowns of the narrators, I create a connection that tells the readers - We are here. We are queer.

• New actors, new angles: By interviewing parents of queer children, queers in the closet or straight allies, I allow new perspectives that tell the readers - This is about all of us.

• Trust over exposure: By working closely together with the narrators, I encouraged agency for their own story.