Pink List India x Naz Foundation
Pink List is India's first archive of politicians supporting LGBTQIA+ rights. For Pride Month, June 2020, they collaborated with queer artists, such as myself, and put together a month long series of illustrations, tracing queer safe spaces by covering grassroots organizations that worked for LGBTQ+ rights, for every Indian state. I got the opportunity to illustrate the history of the legendary Naz Foundation in Delhi! Look at what the other artists produced, on Pink List India's Instagram page.
ABOUT NAZ
Naz is an Indian NGO working in the sectors of gender, health, and rights since 1994. Over the years, Naz has provided care and support services for people and children living with HIV/AIDS and the LGBTQIA+ community on health, sexuality and rights.
In 1994, AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan filed a petition against Section 377 in the Delhi High Court. In 2001, Naz filed a second, larger petition. After eight years of a complex legal battle, the court - under Justice AP Shah and S Muralidhar - delivered the landmark verdict that legalised consensual sex between all individuals.
Today, Naz runs programs for men having sex with men (MSM); home-based medical case and other support for those with HIV/AIDS; peer education service to train student educators in training fellow students on sexuality, HIV/AIDS and sexual health; a Care Home for orphaned children with HIV/AIDS; and an outpatient health clinic in New Delhi.
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TRACING SPACES
The idea behind this piece was to trace the actual space - Naz’s old Gulmohar Park office and the residence of the Founder, Anjali Gopalan (depicted here), which was a both a clinic, and a safe space for the queer community back in the 90s, at the height of the AIDS epidemic in the country. It’s also the place where the first conversations around repealing Section 377 were held.
I fashioned it in a Creation of Adam sort of a frame to show the Creation of this Idea, where this safe space visibly seeks to kindle that change. And of course, the puppy in the painting tells you what a soft space this was.
