Queer Fighters
‘Queer Fighters’ is a photographic body of work that features six different LGBTQ+ individuals based in Dublin who are actively involved in combat sports and Martial Arts, including Muay Thai and Boxing.
This project, which consists of intimate one on one portraits of each athlete placed within different queer friendly clubs around the city hopes to showcase a new era of acceptance in Irish Martial Arts, an era which values diversity and inclusion for all types of athletes.
In developing this body of work amid a rise of homophobic assaults in the city, i wanted to pose a question: is the increased engagement with martial arts by queer people born out of a pragmatic need for self-defense or does a shift in the traditionally heteronormative attitudes associated with martial arts account for the increased interest in the sport within our community? ‘Queer Fighters’, which is accompanied by a selection of interviews made with each athlete and edited by Soria Reilly, is supported by the Arts Council Ireland.
This project, which consists of intimate one on one portraits of each athlete placed within different queer friendly clubs around the city hopes to showcase a new era of acceptance in Irish Martial Arts, an era which values diversity and inclusion for all types of athletes.
