“I dreamt of kissing a girl”, “I dreamt of kissing a boy”, “What sex is your love?”, “I'm gay, don't laugh, smile at me”, “My desk-mate is lesbian, and so?”, “I'm gay, what are you?”. These are the messages that since January 15 you can read on the walls of the city, framed by coloured details of girls and boys' faces.
It's called “L'amore secondo noi” / “Love according to us” and it's the first public campaign made in Venice against homophobia and for the rights to live freely sexual identities and orientations.
The event is promoted by the Municipality of Venice, through the Osservatorio LGBT and the Youth Polices Department, and carried out with the patronage of “All different / All Equal”, the Council of Europe Campaignin to support differences, human rights and youth participation.
“Love according to us” has been conceived during a workshop about the cultures of differences, during the school year 2005/2006 at “Niccolò Tommaseo” High School in Venice.
A project which involved girls and boys of class IV c [s.y. 2005/6] in a series of meetings: a questionnaire about their perception of differences, the vision and discussion over some films, the meeting with Agedo [Association of parents with lesbian and gay sons] and the presentation of the book “L'amore secondo noi” by Delia Vaccarello.
So with the author of this hand book about the “quest of identity” of adolescences, the idea of converting sentences ad notes from the meetings with the girls and boys into a campaign against homophobia and for the rights to differences was born.
A diary of this workshop has been printed at the end of the school year and it is available at the Osservatorio.
Discussed and elaborated along with the girls and boys, these posters are addressed to the citizenship for thinking about the value of relationships and identities to be lived freely and fully. Eight kinds of posters, graphically conceived by Studio Tapiro, one of the most important Graphic Crew in the city, have been affixed in hundreds copies on the walls of the city, like an urban exhibition, with direct, explicit, immediate messages, which try to arouse attention, discussion and emotional impact.