Kia Sciarrone (b. 1989, Ardebil, Iran) resides and works in Vienna, Austria. He has a background in experimental theatre, having dedicated three years to its practice in Tehran. His artistic journey commenced with a focus on self-portraiture as a means of exploring and discovering his own identity. Since 2019, Kia has been engaged in experimenting with materials and exploring various media. In 2021, he began his studies in artistic photography at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

Kia Sciarrone's work We're here. We are queer. Get used to it! examines the internet for posts on LGBTQIA+ contributions in different countries. In numerous autocratic and/or religion-fetishised states, restrictions are introduced that block contributions on LGBTQIA+ topics due to homophobic tendencies and partially or completely block internet access.

That being said, for private use, the internet should at least allow for basic human rights to information without restriction of sexual preferences. Kia's work addresses those moments of censorship by researching queer issues in numerous countries on the internet using a smartphone and leaving a coloured rectangle in place of the existing or non-existing images, indicating the respective title of the article as the source of information. This creates a multicoloured grid pattern that hides photography as photography or image politics and leaves out moments of representation of reality. The fragments of text leave it up to the viewer to activate their own imagination in relation to the facts depicted and to mentally generate a pictorial reality for them.

Text: Walter Seidl