‘Rainbow Warriors’ Project to Show Visibility to the LGBTQ ‘Invisibles’

“The rainbow is the symbol of the LGBTQIA+ community. It’s now known all over the world. Being gay myself, I wondered if I tended to hide behind this flag. Should it protect us or should we dissociate ourselves from it in order to show ourselves?” writes Pierre Marino-Smette in the tutorial for his new project. 

Marino-Smette, a queer photographer from Belgium, is currently working on “Rainbow Warriors,” a project that will show more visibility to the LGBTQ “invisibles,” like the people who had to leave their homes due to their sexual orientation. 

To demonstrate his support and show the journey of these people in the community, Marino-Smette is collecting pictures of LGBTQ people posting with a sign with their first name, pronouns, and the LGBTQ letters they associate with. 

Marino-Smette edits the photo to correspond with one of the flag’s colors and will place all the pictures into a giant Pride flag, made with hundreds of portraits of people from around the world. He is asking people to take their own portrait following his tutorial, and then he will proceed to put all the photos together.  

He has already started working on the project in his country and is collaborating with friends who are interested in the project to organize photo shoots in their cities.

“I really hope that this becomes viral, a bit like a ‘Rainbow Warriors challenge,’ so that I can have pictures from all over the world and make this project as complete and various as our rainbow is,” Marino-Smette says. 

According to Marinio-Smette the complete rainbow should have around 6,000 portraits in total and 540 per color. 

Marino-Smette is a Belgian DJ, photographer, videographer, party promoter, graphic designer, drummer, and singer. As a photographer he has exhibited his work in Brussels, Paris and Montreal and focuses mostly on street photography.  

To learn more about Marino-Smette click here. 

Photo courtesy of the Rainbow Warriors project