PROPAGANDA—
2024

Digital/-
Analog

This series, titled "Propaganda," is the result of a collaboration between visual artist Steven Cruz and the Brussels queer collective Propaganda. Composed of three artist-performers, Krasna, Belligerency, and King Kovaci, the collective aims to shed light on the difficulties faced by queer people in Eastern and Southern Europe and Western Asia, from where they themselves originate, through various shows, events, and performances.

In this series, Steven Cruz stages the members of the collective in a setting that evokes a stereotypical vision of the sports world. We find satirical characters with exaggerated physiques, referencing the standards and expectations we have of the human body, while denouncing the lack of queer representation in sports. During a unifying event supposed to evoke human unity and solidarity, such as the Olympic Games, the underrepresentation and discrimination of queer people remain not only problematic but also taboo.

Considering these premises, this collaboration of artists from diverse backgrounds thus stages what LGBTQ+ people are often wrongly accused of: engaging in propaganda with the aim of converting others. This demonization of an already heavily marginalized community is, of course, far from the truth, as heteronormative and sexist narratives are the norm in our societies.