TOGETHER AS OURSELVES
TOGETHER AS OURSELVES
In celebration of Pride, we're empowering creativity and freedom of expression by amplifying the stories and mission of the LGBTQI+ community.
Our mission is to inspire and enable creative expression, and this can't happen without freedom of expression for everyone.
VANS IS PROUD TO SUPPORT
WHERE LOVE IS ILLEGAL.
Created by the not-for-profit organization Witness Change, our campaign amplifies the voices of LGBTQI+ community members in order to inspire connections, transform opinions and change policies. With a donation of $50,000, Vans supports the launch of Where Love is Illegal’s first Fellowship which has awarded three LGBTQI+ photographers to document stories from queer communities.
ANTON
SHEBETKO
KWASI
DARKO
CAMILLE
FARRAH
LENAIN
Pride month brings visibility to the inequities and inequalities that the LGBTQ+ community is continually fighting for, and Vans has teamed up with incredible artists to showcase the creative voices influencing social change and encouraging acceptance in communities around the world.
ASHLEY
LUKASHEVSKY
KAITLIN
CHAN
SARA
LORUSSO
Inspired by the LGBTQI+ community and the spirit of creative self-expression, our new footwear and apparel collection is designed to support a more equal and inclusive society.
ASHLEY
ASHLEYLUKASHEVSKY
How has your art/ creative practice evolved over time?
My arts practice is constantly evolving. I’ve found myself leaning towards and craving more tactile mediums. I started out as a digital artist, but I find myself wanting to move past the screen— through murals, through painting, through paper and colored pencils, through textiles. That makes this project really exciting. To be able to play with embroidery on canvas and fabric feels really satisfying.
What does community mean to you?
Community is everything. For so much of my adolescence and young adulthood, I didn’t have connection to QTBIPOC community because I hadn’t even realized this huge part of my identity. Finding my community has been everything to me. To feel seen and held and celebrated, and to do that for my friends and family is vital.
LUKASHEVSKY
How has Vans played a part of your personal style?
I feel like lately I’ve been exploring more gender play in the ways that I present, and for me that sometimes looks like shoes that were designed for little boys.
When did you discover Art could be a fulltime endeavor?
I started out doing illustration as a side gig from my full-time design job, and it was really just a dream at first to turn it into my full time career. I saved up as much money as I could to take time to be a fully self employed illustrator— that year I made barely any money and almost gave in to get another corporate job. I had one big break, my friend Cleo from Amplifier hired me for a job that let me pay my rent for maybe 2 or 3 months and I was able to keep dreaming. After many months of that, my career started to solidify and I found that I fully rely on this as my sole income.
When did you discover your voice as an artist/when did you come onto your own creatively?
It was really around 2016 when I found the courage to speak loudly through my art. So much has changed since then, but the political atmosphere (hellish) at the time that was probably the spark. I’m still coming into my own. Like everyone else, I have my creative challenges, my insecurities, my hopes. I want to grow as an artist, and I hope that this is just the beginning.
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CHAN
LORUSSO
KAITLIN
KAITLINCHAN
How has your art/ creative practice evolved over time?
I used to feel more embarrassed about not being as skilled or proficient as I want to be, but now I embrace that my creative practice is an ever-evolving process. I am also trying to recapture the feeling of drawing as a child when time felt more endless and less partitioned, and drawing felt more like world-building than work.
What does community mean to you?
Community means keeping an open heart and mind as I engage with people who have both similar and different struggles and experiences to me. Community also feels like a loose constellation of people who may be on unique paths, but hold shared dreams and plans for a more equitable, less exploitative, future.
CHAN
How has Vans played a part of your personal style?
I got very into pop-punk music in the mid-2000s when I was in middle school, and this led me to watch recordings of the Vans Warped Tour (featuring My Chemical Romance, Taking Back Sunday, Green Day etc.). I've never been great at skateboarding, but I like that wearing comfy Vans makes me feel like the day can take me anywhere: to a concert, to the post office, to dim sum with my family. I fancied myself as a scene or emo kid for a period of time, and the classic checkered Vans also went well with my homemade band tees and studded belts. Oh, the 2000s...
When did you discover Art could be a fulltime endeavor?
For full transparency, I have worked in art gallery administration alongside my illustration/cartooning practice for four years. In terms of professionalizing my drawing practice, it was when I first started to understand my illustrations in relationship to other people's work, and as part of a larger whole. When the writer Alexander Chee commissioned me to draw something inspired by his non-fiction book of essays How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, it was my first post-college foray into taking my drawings more seriously and wanting to collaborate with others.
When did you discover your voice as an artist/when did you come onto your own creatively?
Perhaps rather than one big moment, my journey as an artist has been a string of tiny realizations and changes, from making my first risograph zine with Beatrix Pang of Small Tune Press, to drafting my first ten-page comic about the late queer photographer Ren Hang in a college class. I would not be where I am today without the many artists, publishers, and writers who have taken chances on me and shown me the ropes. I am still learning a lot and I feel that my progress today comes from all the help I got from others.
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LUKASHEVSKY
LORUSSO
SARA
SARALORUSSO
How has your art/ creative practice evolved over time?
My creative practice evolved with me, it changed while discovering myself. I have been my first subject, taking photographs was a necessity for me, I needed to get to know myself and nothing never gave me the opportunity to do so, not until I had started taking self-portraits. As if I would take pictures to see myself from the outside, to recognize and accept myself. So first my subject was me, then my friends and then strangers. When I realized who I was I started shooting others; this has been the tool which allowed me to create a community, a safe place and a way to meet great people. This is why I say that my art evolves with me.
What does community mean to you?
The community allowed me to rediscover myself, or better to discover the real me whom society’s standards buried inside my body. I started asking myself some questions: ‘’ If I wasn't who I always thought I was’’ . It allowed me not to give up, to have both a moral and a psychological support. I met many people over the years and I have to thank many of them if I am here today.
LORUSSO
How has Vans played a part of your personal style?
I still remember my first pair of Authentic blue vans, I had just entered the teenage phase and I used to wear those shoes almost every day, I remember my mom who didn't want me to wear them in winter because they were too thin, but I even used to wear them going out in the snow. I have so many good memories of my days with those shoes, I felt extremely cool as I walked around the corridors of my school.
When did you discover Art could be a fulltime endeavor?
I am finding that out now, in the last few years. Often this work is seen only as a hobby, favors are made in exchange for other favors and it never gets the right value. Art work deserves to get payed exactly as any other job. I have been told too often “I have no budget’' that at one point I started to think that I should have done something else, even though I was very young I wanted to be independent, have my own home, my own space, but as my living depended on art I was never allowed to. I have always been a stubborn person and I fought to make sure that could result in my job, in fact there is no greater satisfaction than being able to reconcile work with your passion. It has become my full time job since a couple of years and for me it is already a victory.
When did you discover your voice as an artist/when did you come onto your own creatively?
I was born in a small town around Bologna’s countryside (Italy), I spent my days in my family’s vegetable garden together with my grandmothers. I watched them work the land, I helped them, I picked the fruit directly from the tree and it usually was more those I ate than those I picked. One day I took this video camera which belonged to my grandparents with me and I started to shoot everything. I filmed my grandmothers sowing the fields, the wild animals of the area and then I placed the camera on some stone and turned it towards me. In this way, I made very long films that I later watched at home on television. I believe that my passion for observing, for recording, for stopping time was born here. It was my way of reminding myself that something had happened that day and I had recorded it. Photography reminds me of an emotion which I’m able to stop forever with one click. Afterwards it was all natural, I liked posed pictures and colors, I wanted to tell about my sexuality and that of others, I wanted to talk about being a woman and about all minorities and so I tried to do.
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LUKASHEVSKY
CHAN
ANTON
SHEBETKO
ANTON SHEBETKO
About the artist
Anton Shebetko is a Ukrainian artist and photographer from Kyiv. He currently lives in Amsterdam. He works closely with LGBTQ + topics, themes of memory, loss of identity, plurality of history, and the role that photography can play in revealing these stories. His extensive research is devoted to the forgotten queer history of Ukraine.
TARAS
I had a quiet and easy-going life in Donetsk. And I believe that's how it feels living in a hometown. All my friends were pretty much open minded although I never felt secure enough to come out to them. I actually recently received some homophobic comments from my friend in Donetsk when I posted a story on my IG with a flagpole of three flags: Ukrainian, LGBTQ+ and European Union. So, I was in the closet my whole life living in Donetsk and only started seeing guys in Kyiv.
In Kyiv I finally made a decision to be honest with myself and people around me, so I started to see guys to understand if that’s really what attracts me more. I didn’t come out earlier because I didn’t feel secure enough around my friends, and not having any queer friends around me made this period of my life quite tough. In Kyiv I started my life from a blank page, and I decided to do whatever I felt like without having any guilt or shame.
KINDER LIMO
I am a non-binary person, musician, and artist, originally from Chernihiv, but for the last 5 years I have lived in Lviv. Now I am in Berlin, due to the escalation of Russia's war in Ukraine.
My process of recognizing my identity has been stretched over time. At the age of 18, I identified myself as bisexual, later realized myself as a non-binary person, and even later realized myself as a pansexual person. At the age of 18, I fell in love with a girl for the first time, and later, realizing my queerness, I began to read a lot of literature, dig into gender theory, research and make queer art, engage in activism. At that time, the word "non-binary" began to resonate with me.
VALERIIA
I’ve liked girls all my life. I never openly talked about it with my relatives. In particular, my grandmother is very strict in this regard - she tried to force me to come out and said that she would not speak to me if she knew that I was dating a girl. She is sure that it is a disease. It seems to me that my relatives understand everything, but do not want to believe it. I am originally from Lugansk. Now it is difficult to judge the situation with LGBTQ+ rights in the region, because there, as the Russian regime came, I noticed by the majority that people began to drink more, became angrier at life and the mentality of the people seemed to change.
I feel relatively safe in Kyiv, we are girls and a couple of times there were situations when unfamiliar guys tried to somehow joke or shout something at us. There was a situation in Kyiv when a girl with a rainbow flag was attacked; after that we realized that we had to be ready for anything and carried pepper spray with us.
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DARKO
FARRAH
LENAIN
KWASI
DARKO
KWASI DARKO
About the artist
Kwasi Darko is a Ghanaian photographer and multimedia artist interested in weaving positive narratives for underrepresented communities and investigating the opportunities that digital spaces and systems hold for them.
HALIL
For me, whatever happened made me stronger and it hasn’t been easy but coming out gives you that freedom, claiming yourself and knowing yourself better. I am an entrepreneur so outside of activism I am striving now to push my businesses and also create new ventures that provide financial empowerment to myself, my community and other areas that I can, areas where I think there is a gap. I feel like I am very interested in all the intervention we can have, be it programs to help sexual health and all community related safety; more safe houses and job opportunities for other members of the community. That is my focus at the moment.
MOH
So, what’s next for me after that horrible situation, I am looking at furthering my education but ultimately, I’m looking at going into academia, to research and be in the academic field of international politics that intersects with international queer rights and international relations in law. I’m looking at a master's and a doctorate with the community concerns at the center of my practice, be it being a lawyer or lecturing. As seen by the current anti-lgbti being debated in parliament, legislation and policy making is one of the most effective ways to make active change.
RASH
When everything happened, there was a great degree of unsafety for me personally as a young activist. I was facing a lot of problems with family members, friends, school mates and I was even receiving threats on social media because my images were all over the media. I went through a lot with depression because I was not myself. My safety and security was not promised because I had to go into hiding. But all this has made me who I am today; stronger as a person, stronger belief in the work I am doing and also knowing and meeting people who fully accept me for who I am. It has also renewed my appreciation for people going through the same struggles in other countries. To be honest, it has shaped my mindset in so many ways that have translated into the life I am living today.
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SHEBETKO
FARRAH
LENAIN
CAMILLE
FARRAH
LENAIN
CAMILLE
FARRAH LENAIN
About the artist
Camille Farrah Lenain is a French-Algerian documentary and portrait photographer who grew up in Paris, studied Photography at l’ESA in Brussels and at ICP in New York City (virtual). She relocated to New Orleans in 2013, where she teaches photography at Tulane University and develops long-term projects with a focus on empathetic portraiture, exploring the notions of representation, collective memory and plural identities. Camille works between France and Louisiana.
France has the largest proportion of Muslims in the Western world, and islamophobia is omnipresent. At the intersection of discrimination from sexual orientation, gender identity and racism, LGBTQI+ people of Muslim culture are actively fighting against these inequalities, while redefining their own religious heritage. This project is an homage to my uncle Farid who passed away in 2013 due to complications from AIDS and diabetes.
NOAM
I have a lot of lucid dreams, that's kind of what saved my life. Throughout my periods of depression, I sleep during the day, I take naps and I manage to put myself in lucid dream states where I live in parallel worlds. Since I control life, I do what I want.
I came out by text message to my father. I said to him: “Listen, I left the house because, I have to tell you, I love Chaima. We decided to go together. Don’t feel guilty. It's not a problem of education”. I remember telling him that it was God who created me like this, that Islam will always be there. I had to justify to myself that I was a good Muslim and at the same time that it was my choice. Strangely, he reacted well : “You will always remain my daughter. Family is important to me, so you will always be my daughter.”
KACIM
The word Muslim translates to “one who submits” but I do not see it as an oppressive submission but as a positive one. I submit myself to a noble idea that I find bright, good, because I find myself humbled by this idea.
I define myself first as feminist. When people define themselves, sometimes they have an order. If I had to choose, it would first be a feminist. Then it would be the queerness and being Muslim. These are two things that nurture each other. I see my relationship with God as a love/fear relationship. And if I fear something of God, it’s not his punishment, it is the fear of disappointing him. Isn’t that the fear we have with someone we love?
RIZLAINE
My grandmother, I think she knows. One day, she asked my aunt: “Rizlaine, when she talks about her girlfriend, is it her girlfriend or her girlfriend?” She tries to disentangle the truth from the false, I think she suspects something or that she knows it. She expects me to verbalize it and I think it will be done very soon.
I thank God every time I experience negative moments. The negative parts actually allow you to go through the shadows to be able to see the light.
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SHEBETKO
DARKO