HOMO NIEWIADOMO

‘The LGBT and gender movement threaten our identity, threaten our nation, threaten the Polish state.’

Jaroslaw Kaczynski

Warszawa, 25.04.2019

I come from

Jugowice,

​

a small

village in the

Owl Mountains,

south-western

Poland.

Homosexuality was

decriminalised in

Poland in 1932 and

since that time, the

ultra-conservative

government, traditional

Christian beliefs and

the increased wave of

nationalism has led to a

suppression of the

LGBT community.

‘“The red plague no longer stalks the earth. But this does not mean that we don’t have a new one which is trying to occupy our souls, hearts and minds .... a rainbow coloured plague.’

Archbishop Marek Jedraszewski

Krakow, 01.08.2019

LGBT people

continue to

experience various

forms of

oppression,

rejection,

harassment,

violence and

discrimination

throughout the

world, despite the

social, legal, and

political advances

that have been

launched in an

attempt to grant them

basic human rights.

‘“

‘It is legitimate and necessary to ask oneself if [homosexuality] is not perhaps part of a new ideology of evil, perhaps more insidious and hidden, which attempts to pit human rights against the family and man.’

​

John Paul II

‘Memory and Identity’ 2005

The abuse of power and religion in Poland

​

by its governing party promotes disgust,

​

hatred, homophobia and anti-affirmation of LGBT.

​

I am Polish, Catholic, patriot and gay,

​

yet without perspectives of a future

​

in my native country

​

where freedom of self-expression,

​

tolerance and fundamental human rights.

I would like to thank my parents, Katarzyna and Krzysztof Jantos, and the rest of my family, my University of South Wales Documentary Photography mentors, Lisa Barnard, David Barnes and Paul Reas, friends who helped me to make this project Marta Wawrzycka and Sofie Newton, my dear classmates and close friends.