Live for Love
Live for love is a series of works that is about human rights at its core, particularly the ongoing fight for LGBQTI+ rights in Australia and globally. We all have the right to love who we want to love. For the last four years, GAS have focused on the development of four-story high inflatable installations that celebrate queer culture and explore broader stories of love and acceptance.
Live for Love was originally created for Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and the City of Sydney, in Australia, to celebrate 40 years since the revolutionary street party turned riot in 1978. This protest march catapulted Australia’s fight for sexual equality into the main political and social agenda.
GAS won a City of Sydney funded design competition to create a temporary installation for the 2018 Mardi Gras. Our concept was ‘40 Years of Love’ and the piece explored the history of gay rights globally. 40 Years of Love was installed at the prominent Taylor’s Square in Paddington, the heart of the Mardi Gras celebrations, and consisted of 40 lineal meters of explosive imagery, floating high above the heads of the event attendees.
After the success of this initial installation, the work evolved into ‘Life for Love’ which has a broader focus on humanity - encompassing everyone’s right to love who they want to love.
The work now includes imagery that encapsulates the evolution of human rights in Australia; telling the story of the treatment of homosexuals in WW2, AIDS activism, queer First Nations visibility and gender diversity.
This story of triumphing over adversity soon reached international audiences and was most recently shown in New York’s World Trade Centre Oculus as a free-standing three-storey work, seen by millions of viewers in 2019. It was then shown in London for the Australian High Commission.
“Live for Love tells us about the good times, and the bad times, about how diverse our community is, but most importantly it is about celebration.”
