Elska, a project dedicated to sharing the bodies and voices of LGBTQ communities around the world, has ventured to Mumbai for its latest edition. Inside, readers can get to know a selection of ordinary men from this iconic Indian metropolis through a combination of intimate and honest photography and personal storytelling.
“Quite soon after Elska was launched, people were describing it as a showcase for diversity, particularly in how it furthers visibility of different races, ages, and body types,” says Elska editor and chief photographer Liam Campbell. “At first this was fully unintentional — the point of Elska was just to travel to different cities, meet a random bunch of local guys, and then share their images and stories in some sort of print publication — but once people started describing how much Elska’s approach meant to them, and how they felt more a part of the LGBTQ community for seeing ‘people like us’, I felt a responsibility to keep going. It was then after a chat with some friends in LGBTQ media who asserted that the South Asian community sees the least representation that I decided to head to India for our next issue.”
“This led us to Mumbai, which originally became the tenth issue of Elska” continues Liam. “However, the issue didn’t do so well, becoming our all-time lowest seller at the time. However, as Elska has continued to grow over the years, having recently published our forty-sixth issue, I decided to do a reissue of Mumbai. While I’m not certain it will fare better this time, considering that South Asian visibility is still so low and undervalued, I’m absolutely proud of our Indian showcase, an issue that is one of my all-time favourites.”
Inside Elska Mumbai and the companion zine Elska Ekstra Mumbai, readers are introduced to thirteen Mumbaikar men. Each was photographed in a natural, spontaneous style, both in their city’s streets and in their homes, dressed in their own style or sometimes not dressed at all, creating a sort of sensual-documentary style. The photos are then accompanied by personal stories penned by each of the thirteen subjects, letting you get to know them at an even more intimate level. The topics of these tales vary widely, including Rehaan D’s series of imagined coming-out letters to his grandmother; Saif G’s ode to chasing true love despite the impending doom of falling for someone of a different caste; and Faraz A’s scandalously vivid poem about his love for foreskin.
‘Elska Mumbai’ is 180 pages and is available from a select group of shops around the world as well as for order online from the Elska website. In addition, the companion zine ‘Elska Ekstra Mumbai’ is available, including hundreds of pages of outtakes, behind the scenes tales, and the stories and photos of a few humans from beyond Mumbai, including work by the guest photo-artists Mitch Cullen and Alcibiade de Paros.
The list of stockists and details of the subscription service can also be found on the Elska website: www.elskamagazine.com.
