Voices of Solidarity Podcast

LGBTQIA+ Artists & Activists
  • 5.0 (3)
  • Arts
  • Updated Semiweekly

Voices of Solidarity is a worldwide collaborative, interactive arts & advocacy project weaving together a tapestry of stories of LGBTQIA+ resilience through the arts. An Official Event of WorldPride 2025. ourpride.substack.com

  1. 1d ago

    Telling Indonesia’s Queer Stories to the World

    What happens when we begin listening to stories that have rarely been heard? For filmmaker Alfred Pek, that question became the starting point for The Emerald Archipelago, a documentary project exploring LGBTQIA+ lives and experiences across Indonesia. Alfred, who was born in Indonesia and now lives in Australia, describes himself as someone who is passionate about storytelling. His work is rooted in documentary filmmaking and in the belief that stories can communicate across borders, cultures, and experiences. For him, filmmaking is more than simply recording what happens in front of a camera. It is a way of communicating when words alone may not be enough. It’s a way of bringing people and experiences into impactful conversations. Indonesia is more than one story The idea for The Emerald Archipelago grew from Alfred’s own connection to Indonesia and from his growing awareness of the complexity of LGBTQIA+ experiences there. After WorldPride 2023, his interest deepened through encounters with people and ideas that challenged the assumptions he had carried with him. He also found inspiration in the work of Indonesian scholar and activist Saskia Wieringa. Indonesia is such an enormous and extraordinarily diverse country, greater than most of the world is aware. And Indonesian LGBTQIA+ communities can’t be reduced to a single experience or a single narrative. That diversity is really central to Alfred’s approach to his new documentary. Rather than having a predetermined story, he wanted to listen. Looking beyond the colonial story One of the themes emerging from the filmmaking project is Indonesia’s history before colonialism, and asking what might have been lost, changed, or reinterpreted along the way. Alfred’s exploratory conversations delved into precolonial practices and histories, particularly around gender and identity. They challenge the widely held belief that LGBTQIA+ identities are somehow foreign to Indonesian culture. The documentary also explores the ways religion and spirituality intersect with acceptance, rather than only as sources of rejection. These are complex stories covering history, culture, identity, faith, and the many diverse communities. The power of listening Alfred traveled through Indonesia and spent time listening to overlooked stories. In November 2025, he spent 35 days in Indonesia as part of the project. What emerged was both a collection of interviews and process of building trust. People shared stories about their lives, communities, and experiences of being queer in different parts of Indonesia. He discovered that those experiences could be remarkably different depending on where someone lived and their surrounding communities. That diversity is one of the film’s greatest strengths, as there is no single Indonesian queer story. A tapestry rather than a single story Alfred describes the project through several interconnected themes. One is the experience of women and gendered identity, while another is the histories that existed before colonial influence. A third explores religion and the possible acceptance within religious communities. Woven together into an expansive storyline, these threads create something much larger than a traditional documentary about identity. The film is a portrait of a country and people negotiating identity, history, culture, and belonging. The result is like a tapestry within which every person contributes another thread. From Indonesia to the world Alfred hopes The Emerald Archipelago can encourage civic engagement, demonstrate the universality of human rights, and create stronger connections between Indonesia’s LGBTQIA+ communities and the wider global LGBTQIA+ community. The documentary is becoming part of a much larger conversation through which someone thousands of miles away can recognize an experience, question an assumption, or simply understand that they are not alone. The film is still in production The Emerald Archipelago is still a work in progress. Following the filming, Alfred and his team have been working on post-production while continuing to raise support for the project while developing the film’s website, social media presence, and opportunities for festivals and distribution. So, the story is still unfolding, as the documentary is built around listening which doesn’t really end when the cameras stop, as the conversations continue. Use the privilege you have Near the end of his conversation with Voices of Solidarity podcast host Alex Storer, Alfred reflects on something that reaches beyond filmmaking. Those of us who have privilege, he suggests, have an opportunity to use it to help others, not by having all the answers, but by listening and opening a door. Sometimes it means using whatever platform, resources, connections, or opportunities we have to make room for someone’s voice. Alfred returns to the idea of a tapestry: individual threads coming together to create something stronger and more beautiful than any one thread could create alone. 🎧 Watch and listen to the full conversation In this episode of Voices of Solidarity, host Alex Storer talks with filmmaker Alfred Pek about The Emerald Archipelago, his journey as a filmmaker, the people he met across Indonesia, and his hopes for bringing these stories to audiences around the world. The film is still being made. The conversation is already underway. Visit: https://emeraldarchfilm.com Get full access to Voices of Solidarity at ourpride.substack.com/subscribe

  2. Sep 2

    LØU - Finding the Space In Between

    Some stories begin with a declaration. Others begin with a question. For Marie-Lou Sauter, who creates and performs as LØU, the questions began early. Growing up in a religious environment in Germany, Marie-Lou found herself wrestling with questions about right and wrong, belonging, identity, and what it meant to be different. Music became the place where she could ask questions she wasn’t always able to ask elsewhere. What began as a private creative practice eventually became something much larger: a life in music, activism, community-building and artistic experimentation. Today, Marie-Lou works across music and performance, exploring identity, emotion and the spaces between categories. Her multidisciplinary work includes music, theater, movement and visual elements. At Utrecht’s HKU, she developed The Last Meal, a multidisciplinary musical-theater work examining hope, grief, ambition and what happens when artists feel forced to abandon their dreams before they have had a chance to be seen. In this episode of Voices of Solidarity, Alex Storer speaks with Marie-Lou about her journey through music and activism, the feminist electronic music collective Xena, the power of vulnerability, her connection with Shishani, and the importance of embracing what exists “in between.” Music as a place to ask questions Marie-Lou’s relationship with music began when she was a child. Growing up, she played music in church. But the experience also introduced her to profound questions about morality, identity and belonging. As she grew older, music became a place where she could explore those questions. She describes her music almost as a diary—a way of revealing things about herself that she can’t necessarily express in everyday life. Music became a way to ask the questions I wasn’t allowed to ask. For Marie-Lou, vulnerability is not something to hide. It is part of the creative process. And ultimately, it can become a form of resistance. From music to activism Marie-Lou’s activism grew naturally out of her experience as a woman making electronic music in an overwhelmingly male-dominated environment. At 17, she joined with four other women involved in music to create Zena, a feminist electronic music collective. Their goal was not simply to create another event series. They wanted to create spaces where artists who were routinely overlooked could find one another, perform, experiment and build community. Zena organized events, parties and festivals and created a magazine and podcast series showcasing artists and their work. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the collective moved much of its activity online. The project grew to the point where clubs began approaching Zena asking them to create inclusive bookings. But Marie-Lou saw a problem with that. The goal wasn’t to become the people who did inclusion for everyone else. The goal was to change the mindset. “We want to change the core of how we approach things.” Real inclusion isn’t simply about finding someone who looks different and putting them on a stage. It’s about changing who gets invited into the room in the first place. The challenge of sustaining solidarity Marie-Lou also speaks honestly about something that anyone involved in grassroots activism will recognize: How do you keep going? Zena has been largely volunteer-driven, and Marie-Lou talks about the difficulty of maintaining consistency and endurance while also trying to make a living. It’s a familiar tension. People want to create change, but they also have to pay rent, build careers, maintain relationships and take care of themselves. Solidarity isn’t powered by an unlimited supply of energy. Sometimes it requires knowing when to slow down, when to make space for others, and when to return with renewed energy. Art that refuses to stay in one category That same refusal to stay inside a single category appears throughout Marie-Lou’s artistic work. As LØU, she describes herself as a genre-fluid producer and music-performance artist, combining elements of indie, electronic music and R&B with theater, movement and visual elements. Her work deliberately plays with the boundary between performer and audience. Her 2024 HKU project The Last Meal brought music, script, acting, movement and visual design together in a multidisciplinary performance. This isn’t separate from the philosophy she describes in the interview. It is the philosophy. The form itself becomes an exploration of what happens when we stop insisting that things must fit neatly into one category. Finding the space in between Perhaps the central idea of this conversation is the space in between. Marie-Lou’s artistic identity is deeply connected to this idea. We often organize the world into binaries: A or B. Left or right. Male or female. Pain or joy. But human experience doesn’t always work that way. Marie-Lou asks what happens when we allow several things to exist at the same time. “How can things coexist?” For her, queerness offers one way of understanding that complexity. There can be ambiguity, contradiction, uncertainty, grey zones, asnd there can be beauty in them. Her artistic work embraces that movement. A performance can take us from sadness to laughter, from softness to intensity, sometimes within minutes. We don’t have to choose one emotion and reject the others. We can experience them all. The work begins with ourselves One of the most powerful moments in the interview comes when Alex asks Marie-Lou what advice she would give someone who doesn’t have a creative outlet. Her answer is surprisingly simple: Start with yourself. Look at what you reject within yourself. What do you dislike? What do you hide? What don’t you want other people to see? And why? Marie-Lou suggests that the judgments we hold toward ourselves can become the same judgments we project onto other people. If we begin to develop compassion for those parts of ourselves, our relationship with the world can change as well. The result isn’t necessarily a simpler life. In fact, Marie-Lou suggests that life becomes more complex. But perhaps complexity is not something we should fear. Perhaps it is something we need to learn to hold. One thread leads to another Marie-Lou’s story also connects directly to another thread in Voices of Solidarity: Amsterdam-based Namibian-Belgian artist Shishani. The two met at a music conference and quickly discovered a shared commitment to creating greater inclusion in music. Their connection soon became action. When queer rights in Namibia came under threat, Marie-Lou and Shishani helped organize a fundraising event in a matter of weeks, bringing artists together to support people doing the work on the ground. It was an example of solidarity becoming something tangible. Not just an idea or a statement, but action. That connection also opened the door to other creative collaborations. Marie-Lou has worked with Sites of Memory, an Amsterdam-based artistic initiative that brings erased and underrepresented histories of slavery and colonialism into public conversation through creative work. Her work with the organization has included marketing and communications for its productions. One connection led to another. One act of solidarity opened another door. And another thread entered the tapestry. ❤️ And sometimes solidarity changes our own lives There is another beautiful moment in Marie-Lou’s story. She describes having spent years feeling lonely, angry and frustrated. Then, through the connections created by this work, something unexpected happened. She met her partner. The work she was doing to create connection for other people ultimately created a new connection in her own life. It’s a reminder that solidarity isn’t always a one-way transaction. We give something. We show up. We create something together. And sometimes, in ways we couldn’t have planned, we find something we needed ourselves. A thread in the tapestry Perhaps that’s what makes Marie-Lou’s story such a powerful addition to Voices of Solidarity. Her message isn’t that we should move neatly from pain to happiness. Or from fear to certainty. Or from one identity to another. It’s that we can make room for complexity. We can hold grief and joy, vlnerability and strength, questions and conviction, difference and connection. We can live in the spaces between. And sometimes, the work of changing the world begins by looking honestly at ourselves. It begins with a question and becomes a song. The song becomes a connection. The connection becomes solidarity. And another thread enters the tapestry. 🎙️ Listen to Marie-Lou Voices of Solidarity is a podcast from OUR PRIDE exploring the people, stories, creativity and acts of courage that connect our global LGBTQIA+ community. Listen to Alex Storer’s full conversation with Marie-Lou above. Then explore more of her work as LØU and follow the journey of an artist who is refusing to choose between the categories the world has given her. https://www.instagram.com/lou.do.lou/ Keep weaving. If Marie-Lou’s story speaks to you, share this episode with someone who might need to hear it. And if you have a story, a voice, an image or a piece of art that belongs in this tapestry, we want to hear it. The tapestry is never finished. And neither is the work. One voice. One story. One thread at a time. Get full access to Voices of Solidarity at ourpride.substack.com/subscribe

  3. Jun 10

    The Power of Softness: Shishani on Art, Identity, and Connection

    In the inaugural re-launch episode of Voices of Solidarity, host Alex Storer in London welcomes Shishani, Namibian-born singer, songwriter, producer, and activist from her home in Amsterdam. Together they explore identity, belonging, creativity, and the power of art to build connection across differences. Shishani reflects on growing up between cultures, using music as a form of healing and activism, and why softness may be one of the most powerful forces for change in a divided world. Topics include:• Art as activism• LGBTQIA+ community and solidarity• Identity and belonging• Colonial history and social justice• Building connection across differences Voices of Solidarity is a podcast celebrating the stories, ideas, and experiences that strengthen LGBTQIA+ communities and human rights movements around the world. Because every story is a thread. And together, we weave the tapestry. Learn more at OurPride.org. Get full access to Voices of Solidarity at ourpride.substack.com/subscribe

    The Power of Softness: Shishani on Art, Identity, and Connection

  4. Jan 2

    Advocating for LGBTIQ+ Rights in Uganda

    In this episode of Voices of Solidarity, Hans Senfuma, an online activist and campaigner from Uganda, delivers his presentation from the ILGA Pan-African Conference in Johannesburg, South Africa. Speaking from lived experience, Hans describes what it means to advocate for LGBTIQ+ rights in a country where existence itself is criminalized, digital expression is surveilled, and visibility carries real and immediate risk. His presentation traces the legal landscape shaped by Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act, the increasing dangers faced by online activists, and the emotional toll of sustained digital harassment, doxxing, and state-enabled hostility. This episode is not an interview. It is a witness — a clear, courageous articulation of the realities facing queer Ugandans today, and a call for international solidarity, accountability, and sustained support. What You’ll Hear in This Episode * The criminalization of LGBTIQ+ identity and expression in Uganda * How digital platforms have become both lifelines and danger zones * Platform suppression, shadow-banning, and content removal targeting queer advocates * The mental health cost of constant surveillance and harassment * Why activists persist — even when isolated * A call to repeal the Anti-Homosexuality Act and support grassroots resistance Content Note This episode includes discussion of criminalization, state violence, online harassment, and mental health impacts related to LGBTIQ+ persecution. Call to Action * Share this episode to amplify Hans’s voice * Support grassroots LGBTIQ+ organizations in Uganda * Advocate for accountability from governments and tech platforms * Stand in solidarity — transform one voice into a chorus About the Speaker Hans Senfuma is a Ugandan online activist and human rights campaigner whose work focuses on digital advocacy, visibility, and protection for LGBTIQ+ communities living under criminalization. His activism centers the lived realities of queer Ugandans navigating hostile legal, political, and digital environments. About This Podcast Voices of Solidarity is a mission-driven audio podcast produced by Rainbow Advocacy. The series centers lived experience as expertise, amplifying voices from communities most affected by injustice, displacement, and systemic harm. These are not conversations for performance — they are acts of listening, documentation, and solidarity. Content Note This episode includes discussion of criminalization, state violence, online harassment, and mental health impacts related to LGBTIQ+ persecution . Get full access to Voices of Solidarity at ourpride.substack.com/subscribe

  5. 09/02/2025

    Gay Poems for Red States

    OUR PRIDE Shorts & Arts Fest partner organization, the international Charter for Compassion, featured an interview with author Willie Edward Taylor Carter, Jr. in their Global Reads series hosted by Felipe Zurita Quintana. Months after being named 2022 Kentucky Teacher of the Year, Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr. made a heartbreaking choice—he walked away from the classroom. I can’t stop thinking about his story. Willie spent more than a decade teaching high school English, giving everything he had to his students. But the same courage that made him a great teacher also made him a target. Early in his career, an administrator told him flat-out: “Don’t talk about being gay. No one will protect you—including me.” For a while, a new administration gave him some breathing room. But eventually, that first warning came true. School officials looked the other way as LGBTQ+ students were harassed. They looked the other way when Willie himself was harassed. He testified before Congress to shine a light on what’s happening in our schools, but by then the damage was done. He loved teaching—but no one should have to teach under threat just for being who they are. Willie’s response? He didn’t go silent. Instead, he wrote Gay Poems for Red States—a book that’s part memoir, part love letter to Appalachia, and entirely full of hope. It’s not just poetry. It’s a reminder that even in hostile places, beauty and pride can take root. Reading his story, I feel a mix of anger and admiration. Anger that we’re still here, fighting the same old battles. Admiration because Willie refuses to let hate define him—or his students. His words are a lifeline to every LGBTQ+ kid who’s searching for a home in a place that doesn’t always welcome them. This isn’t just his story. It’s all of ours. Check it out on Amazon Get full access to Voices of Solidarity at ourpride.substack.com/subscribe

  6. 06/25/2025

    Tanzania Trilogy Wins 2025 OUR PRIDE Shorts Fest

    Los Angeles-based Rainbow Advocacy, producer of the 2025 OUR PRIDE Short Film Festival, has announced the winner of Best Short Film Series: "We're Not Criminals," a trilogy of poetry short films that boldly call for dignity, visibility and equal rights for those pushed to the margins. It is a creation of "Unmute," a spoken word project created by Omary Baajun and filmmaker Brother Zaheed. The project challenges prejudice and celebrates the power of poetry to reclaim identity and belonging. An Official WorldPride 2025 Partner Event, the 2025 OUR PRIDE Short Film Festival was hosted by and in partnership with the Charter for Compassion. Omary Baajun is an award-winning poet, writer, editor, publisher, and ambassador of peace and human rights. The trilogy is rooted in Baajun's work as the founder and executive director of GenDAR Initiative, a grassroots organization based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. GenDAR utilizes arts, education, and research to amplify human rights, particularly for the LGBTIA+ community. The poems in “We’re Not Criminals” directly address the experiences and struggles of the queer community in Tanzania and Africa at large UKIWA / The TragedyA reflection on love, loss and the quiet struggles faced in a society that resists difference -- and justifies hate, selfishness, violence, and silence. HOPEThe poem gives voice to the quiet pain of hiding, the weight of fear, and the grief of love denied. But within that darkness, it also honors strength, love and resistance that continue to grow. A tribute to queer lives across Africa, where being queer often means facing criminalization, violence, and deep social rejection. The poem gives voice to the quiet pain of hiding, the weight of fear, and the grief of love denied. But within that darkness, it also honors the strength, love, and resistance that continue to grow. “HOPE” is a reminder that even where freedom is denied, the human spirit endures—and that hope, however fragile, still exists. ALIVE The poem reclaims voice and identity. It speaks for those buried in silence, erased by family, and judged by society, and executed by the law -- but still standing strong. ALIVE is resistance, truth, and the demand to be seen as fully human. It reminds the world that being a human must not be a crime. A defiant declaration of queer existence in a world that often denies it. Rooted in the harsh realities of rejection, misrepresentation, and spiritual violence, especially within traditional African communities, the poem reclaims voice and identity. It speaks for those buried in silence, erased by family, and judged by society, and executed by the law—but still standing. “ALIVE” is not just survival; it is resistance, truth, and the demand to be seen as fully human. It reminds the world that being a human must not be a crime. Omary Baajun is a multi-award-winning poet, writer, editor, storyteller, researcher, curator, environmentalist, and certified ambassador for peace and human rights. He proudly identifies as non-binary and queer. His involvement in diplomacy includes serving as a Young African Diplomat and a member of the U.S. Department of State’s Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI), as well as participating in other notable programs such as Tanzania International Model United Nations (TIMUN), Business Scouts for Development, and The Dream Academy. These efforts earned him the WLFPH International Ambassador of Peace Award, conferred by the World Literary Forum for Peace and Human Rights in 2022 (South Asia), and the WAOW Global Humanitarian Award in 2023 (India). In the artistic realm, Baajun is known for his dynamic poetry performances, theatre work, and his band. He also curates youth art programs and has been involved in projects such as Kwetu ni Kwetu, City Pride, Unmute, The Pitching Lab, among others. A significant aspect of his work is advocacy and activism — he uses his platform to champion human rights, peace, and justice. Baajun is the founder of GenDar Hub Tanzania, a creative space in Dar es Salaam that utilizes arts, education, and research to promote gender equality, inclusion, and human rights. He is also the CEO of Kwetu Publishers, a small publishing firm dedicated to empowering marginalized voices. Additionally, he serves as the Deputy Secretary-General of the Tanzania Writers Association, Chairman of the Queer Creatives Tanzania Network, and Country Ambassador for both the World Association of Women Warriors and Our Pride Tanzania. Selected Awards and Honors: • Honorary Award for Swahili Literature • AWT Creative Luminary of the Year 2025 (Nigeria) • TAMEYA Special Ability Award 2024 (Tanzania) • UNI Awards: Best Performance Poet & Author 2023 (Tanzania) • AfriCAN Honoree Authors’ Award 2023 (South Africa) • Kwanzaa Award 2022 (USA) • Mulher Forte African Literature Award 2022 (Botswana) “For decades, our stories, creativity, innovations, music, literature, and art have been denied the chance to be showcased and celebrated in art spaces, cultural centers, and innovation hubs across Tanzania. This is why we are raising funds to create our own space — a place where we belong. A place where LGBTQ people can thrive as artists, innovators, and entrepreneurs. A space where our ideas are welcomed, our talents are celebrated, and our community can build a future on our own terms. With your support, through this hub, we will create opportunities to generate income, create jobs, and empower each other through our work.”- Omary Baajun Get full access to Voices of Solidarity at ourpride.substack.com/subscribe

  7. 06/14/2025

    Our Motherland Africa

    I made this video to reclaim what was erased and to speak directly to the motherland from a place of truth, pain and pride. Blending poetry, music, and a bold face, the piece reclaims erased queer histories and speaks directly to the African continent. Both personal and political, the work is a call to remember, resist, and re-root in the fullness of African identity. Ato Kwamina HasfordGHANA Get full access to Voices of Solidarity at ourpride.substack.com/subscribe

    Our Motherland Africa

  8. 06/12/2025

    Our Human Rights in 2025

    Greetings comrades from where you are watching this from. Well, today we all know globally that the LGBTQ plus rights are being debated about in many different countries. And this has also led to many different countries to stop their pride events. But well today, I'm just here to put out a stark reminder to all of you who are out there. Human rights are non-negotiable. The LGBTQ plus human rights are rights and they are human rights and they will go nowhere. We are here and we are to be here. I want to talk about human rights. Human rights are the basic rights and freedoms that everyone deserves, no matter who they are. These include the right to live freely, to live from violence, to speak your mind, to get an education, and to be treated fairly. But in Uganda once an LGBTQI + child is discovered in school, he or she is strictly forbidden in that school and the school administrators will say that this child will recruit others into homosexuality. We still have cases of LGBTQI +individuals being evicted by their landlords from their houses simply because they’re only males or females that are more than one living under the same roof. All these actions that affect LGBTQI + individuals in Uganda are circled with an excuse of culture, religion and how will the society see that you’re dating man and you’re a man. And forgetting that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, says that all people are born free and equal. However, people like me who were born gay in Uganda, don’t enjoy these rights and keep on hiding what we’re in order to be safe from violence and being discriminated. But in reality, our job as people globally is to make sure that these rights become a reality for everyone. This means that everyone needs to stand up for people like me who are treated unfairly and work together to create a world where everyone's rights are respected no matter who I love or who I am. When we protect the rights of others, we make our own communities stronger and more just. Human rights are connected, and an injustice anywhere affects us all. By respecting and fighting for the LGBTQI + rights, we help build a better, more compassionate world. let's commit to upholding human rights for all people. Let's work hard to ensure everyone is treated with dignity, fairness, and respect. Together, we can make a difference and create a world where justice and Equality thrive. Get full access to Voices of Solidarity at ourpride.substack.com/subscribe

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About

Voices of Solidarity is a worldwide collaborative, interactive arts & advocacy project weaving together a tapestry of stories of LGBTQIA+ resilience through the arts. An Official Event of WorldPride 2025. ourpride.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    LGBTQIA+ Artists & Activists
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    20
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Rainbow Advocacy
  • Show Website
    Voices of Solidarity Podcast