Love is love

Action for Peace #4

What happened?

Workshop and Street Action “Love is Love” took place from the 8th to the 9th of June 2019 in Vienna. The Workshop brought together 11 participants from 7 countries ( Austria, Croatia, France, Germany, Italy, Indonesia and Serbia). “Love is Love” was created as a follow-up activity of an International Study Session on Gender and it focused on stimulating young people to actively engage in challenging the concept of heteronormativity in a creative mater.

The Workshop was divided into two sessions. In the first session, the participants were guided to reflect on heteronormativity and to examine different dimensions of gender binarism in our society. In the second session, participants translated their aim into a street performance which occurred the next day on the Danube Canal in Vienna. The non-formal education methods and activities used on the Workshop were from the toolkit “Free to be you and me”. The intention of the organisers was to shape up the Workshop in which participants could have a chance to learn from one another, exchange their ideas and learn how to put those ideas in a concrete action.

The main idea of the street action was to encourage the passengers to re-evaluate their usual thinking structures on gender binary which assumes that people are supposed to love and feel attracted only to the opposite sex.

One part of the participants was writing the messages/ slogans that they wanted to share on the pavement, such as:

  • “The only argument of Love is Love”
  • “Love is Love”
  • “Love has no category/label/gender/race/religion/rules/borders”
  • “Love is not a sickness… Love is good for your Health”
  • “Love for all, all for Love”

The other part of the group invited the passengers to do the same. During the Street Action participants were also sharing the Balloons with those slogans and have eventually sang a song “Love Is All you Need” form the Beatles.

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

DATE:

8th – 9th June, 2019

LOCATION: 

Vienna, Austria

IMPLEMENTED BY: 

SCI Austria

EMAIL: 

    • office@sci.or.at

WEBSITE:

Foue woman sitting on a blanket in a park writing on the ballons
a man sitting by the river with a bike, on one half can be seen the river, in the other is the sidewalk with drawings
two woman smiling, in the bckground there is a fridge, a wall with decorations, a jar
a man reading a paper while sitting on a chair
Andrea taking poppers
two people walking by the river