Visible Dinner: An Open Dialogue

Conversation is everything. Our aim with the #VisibleLove exhibition is to encourage people to take that first step toward each other, not only to speak, but to listen, to get the dialogue going. A special project within the series, we were extremely excited about hosting our first #VisibleDinner at H&M’s gorgeous Berlin Showroom and we still can’t believe how this cozy little evening has exceeded our expectations.

Container Love was established with one simple mission in mind: to spark conversation. We believe that the only way to heal a broken society is to open opportunities for dialogue, and to listen to each other. When we were planning this year’s #VisibleLove exhibition series, we wanted to create an experience that may be oriented around the queer community yet it has something to offer for everyone.

This is why we are very happy with how our #VisibleDinner turned out and that we managed to bring open-minded creatives, artists, activists, influencers, journalists and executive members of the H&M group together to discuss what real inclusivity looks like and how communication can be changed through projects like our #VisibleLove exhibition series.

Gathered in H&M’s dreamy Berlin Showroom overlooking the city’s Monbijoupark, we set up everything for a perfect dinner with a real conversation around the table. Surrounded by the images of #VisibleLove’s all-star lineup of photographers, including Lindsay Ryklief, Jess T. Dugan, Rob Tennent, Allie & Jesse, Soraya T. Zaman and Leo Maki, we just couldn’t wait to introduce our favorite people to each other. We set the tone and the topic of the evening: how can we express and portray real diversity in new, bold ways?

With both its director, Ben Galster and featured artist, Leo Maki present, we showed our latest original short, The Hidden Dimension to the people sitting at our table of love: friends of Container Love and Studio Christian Ruess, who are sharing the same values as us, members of the Act Out movement, a group of queer actors demanding more visibility in German speaking film, television and theatre, journalist, artists, influencers, people representing a wide selection of genders, sexualities, ethnicities, bodies, abilities and backgrounds across all areas of fashion and media, as well as members of the H&M Group.

There’s one thing that we all have in common. We all believe that setting the groundwork for change is only possible with visibility that is not seasonal, visibility that lasts 365 days a year. Seeing people sharing more and more and understanding each other better by the minute, listening to all these new opinions, all the new impulses was a moving experience. As the evening went on and people started to get to know each other a little bit better, we shared ideas, listened to each other’s stories drifting from conversation to conversation with a rare assurance: if only we could talk to each other, speaking our mind more often, the context of #VisibleLove would look drastically different.

Container Love is built on collaboration. For what we do, we need partners, we need allies, people who share the same values as us. #VisibleLove has become one of the most successful projects in Container Love’s history and this is solely because we found each other with the right people at the right time. We have been very fortunate to kickstart this project in the company of our wonderful friends at H&M and we are beyond excited to continue collaborating in the future!

Our #VisibleLove exhibition series slowly comes to an end, but you can still see the images of our beautiful artists on display until August 21st in Copenhagen!

Our old and new friends joining us for our first #VisibleDinner:

Penninah Amanda – Fashion Stylist represented by Liganord Agency; Max Weiland – Founder of LGBTQIA+ model and talent agency UNS; Jochen Schropp – Actor, TV Host, Podcaster, Author, Activist and Author of Queer as F*ck; Marshall Vincent – Singer, Songwriter and Producer; Florian Hetz – Photographer participating in #VisibleLove 2021, Adam Munnings – Director and Filmmaker; Ruhi Parmar Amin – Editor at Highsnobiety and creator of The Slanted House, Wojciech Wos – Painter; Henri Maximilian Jakobs – Musician, Promoter and part of Act Out; Tereza Mundilová – Photographer represented by Shotview and Video Editor at Vogue Germany; Joseph Wolfgang Ohlert – Photographer and participant in Container Love exhibition in Hamburg back in the days; Phoenix Chase-Meares – Director & Performance Artist; Steph Baretto – Model, Social Media Promoter; Bobby Lies – Singer & Songwriter; Leo Maki – Photographer participating in #VisibleLove 2022 and star of the coming short film “The Hidden Dimension”, Fayim – Musician.

Pictures by Photographer Mario Palufi.