#PrideMonth
Portrait of Australian-British LGBTQIA+ and human rights campaigner, Peter Tatchell (born in 1952) captured in 1999 by Australian photographer Polly Borland (born in 1959).
Bromide print
50 x 39 cm, 20 x 15 in approx
National Portrait Gallery, London
Polly Borland is known both for her editorial portraits and for her work as a photographic artist. She created this photograph as an imagined version of the police mug shot taken after Tatchell’s arrest a month before this portrait was made for his protest about the Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe’s abuse of human rights. It is not an official police photograph or taken in a police station although it looks as if it is.
Borland is known for experimental, stylised and sometimes unsettling portrait photographs. She carefully directs the way the person is presented, including their pose and clothes. This artwork is a good example of her approach to photographic portraiture.
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Peter Tatchell is a campaigner for human rights, civil liberties and social justice. He is particularly well known for his work with movements campaigning for LGBTQIA+ equality.
Peter Tatchell became interested in human rights from an early age.
At the age of 16 he tried to start a gay rights campaign but remembers that people were too scared to support him (homosexuality was still illegal in Australia at the time). He also protested against the Australian government’s involvement in the Vietnam War.
Tatchell moved to Britain in 1971. Here he became involved in the gay rights movement. This was a time when traditional attitudes towards sexuality and gender were being questioned and British laws, although still very limiting, were beginning to change.
In 1972 he helped to organise the UK’s first official Gay Pride march and rally in London. Today, this has grown into a yearly parade and festival, now known as ‘Pride in London’, or ‘London Pride’, with over 1.5 million people taking part.
More recently, Tatchell has talked about the need to return to the radical roots of Pride and has led the ‘Reclaim Pride’ march in London. He describes this as “a community-led march getting back to the roots of Pride, being both a celebration and a protest for LGBTQIA+ rights, ditching the corporate sponsors and commercialism”.
Over the years Tatchell has been, and still is, at the forefront of debates and campaigns on LGBTQIA+ issues. These include making the age of consent the same for everyone, regardless of their sexuality, and making same-sex marriage legal.
He has also campaigned around the world against many other human rights abuses and is known for using a wide range of tactics in his campaigning.
– npg org uk
