Making the rainbow visible
Artist, curator and activist Shannon Novak on rainbow visibility as healing in Te Whanganuia-Tara
‘I’ve got something to tell you’’ he said as we sat on an old bench by the ocean, the sun setting. We had been mates for a long time and recently become close in ways I couldn’t really make sense of. Tears began rolling down his face, he turned to me and, after an awkward silence, he blurted, ‘‘I’m gay’’. In shock I took a moment to process as he wept.
It was the 90s in rural Taranaki. I was a teenager, he was takatāpui, and he was my youth group leader at church. I was closeted, terrified to tell anyone, yet I turned to him and said, ‘‘So am I’’. This moment marked the start of my first relationship, a deeply intense relationship we would keep behind closed doors, but one full of love. Sadly, it ended with him outing himself to the church out of guilt and being put through conversion therapy. In contrast I decided to leave home and live my truth as a gay man in Auckland.
Years later I was on Karangahape Rd when I saw him stumbling around extremely drunk in the dark corner of a gay bar. Initially I couldn’t believe it was him, as I knew he had settled into a heterosexual life with a wife and children. He was whisked away before I could get to him, but the following week we had coffee and a long conversation about the very different paths we had taken in life.
He said, ‘‘I realised I was in fact gay’’ and told me he had left his family to be his ‘‘true self’’. However, he had spiralled into drugs and alcohol as a way of dealing with loss, guilt and confusion. He was a mess. It wasn’t long before he moved to Australia and we lost contact. I knew he was hurting and on a journey to reclaim what had been programmed out of him by the church and others.
We eventually reconnected in 2019 in Taranaki after a long period of silence. He had returned home and I was living in Auckland but had an exhibition there. I remember the glowing smile, the warm hug, and hearing about the carving he was doing full time. He spoke about the internal struggles he still had, but I felt he was heading in a positive direction at long last.
Unfortunately I was wrong. In 2020 he took his own life. The moment I lost him was the moment I left my day job and began supporting rainbow communities full time. I had been dealing with my own internal struggles and neurodivergence for years and noticed as I got older more and more of my friends from rainbow communities going through rapidly increasing levels of anxiety and depression, sometimes resulting in death. I wanted to know why this was happening and what I could do to help change this.
From the darkness of my own anger, sadness, and mental illness, emerged a light. I took action and initiated the Make Visible project, a global project to help grow positive mental health outcomes for rainbow communities worldwide by making visible the challenges and triumphs of those communities primarily through the lens of contemporary art.
Starting with Queensland Gallery of Modern Art, then in Taranaki with the GovettBrewster Art Gallery, the project has increased public awareness and education and in turn increased public support for rainbow communities in these locations and beyond.
The Wellington chapter began last month with support from Wellington City Council as Make Visible: Te Whanganui-a-Tara. Like in Queensland and Taranaki it is led by local rainbow communities, has foundations in contemporary art, and has no specified end date.
Over time voices from local rainbow communities past and present will be acknowledged, centered, and amplified with a focus on those whom are most silenced for various reasons.
It’s a meaningful, engaged, and ongoing conversation anybody is welcome to join, and one driving positive change from a good place.
An artist, curator and activist, Shannon Novak is the founder and director of the Safe Space Alliance, a LGBTQI+ led nonprofit organisation. If you need to talk, free call or text 1737 to talk to a trained counsellor. They’re available day and night.