You are not unlovable. - A friend once told me this. I sometimes forget about it, so I made this as a memo.

Details: the image is a bit manipulated (you can see the original at: http://eloisavaldes.com/post/21980026541/some-photography-from-2006-in-coimbra ). I took an old picture I’ve made in the Jardim Botânico de Coimbra (Portugal) some years ago and added those words with a nice font called Rawengulk Sans. Added some “surface blur” on Photoshop (CS5) in the end and voilá!

Shadows. People. Relations. Relationships in the shadows. | PLAGIAI, UBI 

Scene: A couple’s discussion. Play: Estado de Excepção: CITAC, 2007.

i-am-max:

eloisavaldes:

i-am-max:

why do you need to have a kid to be a family?

Why do you think it’s a kid? It could be a gnome. :P

Seriously, now. I don’t think kids are needed for a family to exist and, while that may be one of the possible interpretations of this scheme, I think it’s good there is an indication of the presence of children in all of those types of families. This way the sign not only lets the viewer know that families come in all forms, genders and sizes (could have been more work on those, actually), it also lets you know it’s perfectly okay for a lgbtq and/or a non-monogamous family to have kids, be they adopted or not, as well as the single moms and dads and the monogamous… I hope the point is clear, now. :)

I knew that was the point to begin with, but I’m sure there are people out there who consider themselves to be part of a family, whether they are in a monogamous relationship or something else, who might see this and think “all those ‘families’ have children. we don’t have children. are we not a family?” and it’s a bit shit if people ended up feeling that way just because someone was trying to show that lgbtq, non monogamous and single parent families are all valid. I think a family is just whatever the hell you want it to be and a picture with six examples of a family just ridiculously simplifies it and that’s not okay.

I did start to say I don’t think people need children in order to have a family. I also said that the image could have been better regarding the depiction of diversity of families, so the way I see it we’re on the same page, in that respect. And I really think who did that design is as well. 

If I had to guess, I think the author decided to a) simplify it, because the genre of the image is to simplify to the max the info (for better or for worse - but that’s another discussion) and b) take a political stance regarding the adoption/presence of kids in those families that are seen as non-traditional.

This picture is political and its subject is (and must, to serve its goals of simplicity and clarity of discourse) children-focused. Could there have been families without kids, there? Sure, but that would be a design with another goal, not this one. This one’s not to make people feel better about themselves, nor to depict every single family type (there are more besides the children-less you speak of), but directed at those who think certain people cannot have children - especially the law makers.

You must be aware of the lots of families whose kids have been ripped off from them just because their family does not fall on the traditional standard and, coincidentally, of the relevance and need of such positive discourses. Not in order to make them feel better, but to change laws that take children away from loving homes just because the parents are this or that.    

It’s also a step forward in the rationale for the law-makers, for if those people can have children and be families, according to the law, it probably means that before they were able to be families too, only without kids. Why? Because usually laws advance that way. First you get to exist without persecution, then you get to marry/live together without persecution, then you get to be able to have kids/adopt and not be arrested, and so on. The fight for their own peace would stop at the second stage, for people without kids. This design here seems to be made for a place/time where people without kids can already live together and marry and be families, but where people like that, without kids but who want them, can’t have them because it’s illegal. So… this isn’t “just because someone was trying to show that lgbtq, non monogamous and single parent families are all valid” (that could have been done without kids in the picture, btw, you’re going against your own argument, here xD), but just because someone wanted those people to have their full rights as well. Aaaaand politicians are dumb, so the image needs to be simplified to the max, so that there’s a single focus in it.

And btw, Rights trump feelings, in my book.

 TL;DR: Yes, there could have been a better picture, to depict all the types of families around, but the goal of this one was very specific and that’s why there are only families with kids in it, IMO. Also because politicians are stupid and need very simple lines.

It’s not exactly saying that you need a kid to be a family, but hey… beauty’s in the eye of the beholder, and crap. One will interpret at will and as they see it, and every text is doomed to be misread. 

#Photography from 2010. GTIST. Play: Intervalo para dançar.

Photography from 2010. GTIST. Intervalo para dançar.

- Talk about clinging, uh? :>

 This was one of the most emotional plays I’ve seen. Its photography is filled with scenes like this, that you can think about and relate with topics ado with gender, violence, romance and relationships.

Photography from 2010. GTIST. Intervalo para dançar,