Before this we were presenting our ‘truths’ to the world, now take a look at our fantasies,” says Vikas, one of the participants of the Nigah QueerFest, an annual event featuring photography, films, discussions and open-mike events by the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and inter-sex (LGBTI) community. The 10-day festival hosted by Nigah, a self-funded queer collective, opens this Friday in three locations in Delhi, at the India Social Institute, Lodhi Road; Nehru Park and the Max Mueller Bhavan. Unlike the first two tentative years, this year’s fest is celebratory even those who aren’t out of the closet.

After the Delhi High Court ruled that Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that criminalises sexual acts between consenting adults violated fundamental rights, and the three-member committee of P Chidambaram, Veerappa Moily and Gulam Nabi Azad issued a statement that the government is not contesting the judgment for now, the atmosphere is positive.

Photographer Sunil Gupta and queer activist/writer Gautam Bhan have been curating the visual art element in Nigah for the past two years. Bhan says the work submitted this year is significantly different. “Previously, we exhibited mostly self-portraits. It’s established now that queer people exist in the mainstream, so the theme has shifted to fantasy and includes line sketches and photographs, both radical and intimate,” says Bhan.

“Queer people, because of the intense repression most of them experience, construct elaborate fantasies as a survival strategy,” says Gupta, whose work is entrenched in queer activism, “We are also in that art historical moment when the concept overrides craft, hence we blur the boundaries between professional artists and untrained ones,” he adds.

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