A Campaign of Intersections: Evaluating Perceptions of the Our City of Colours LGBTQ Posters in Metro Vancouver

Our City of Colours (OCC) is a Vancouver-based group looking to raise the visibility of, and address the issues facing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in various linguistic and cultural communities. In November 2011, the group released a series of 6 posters online featuring LGBTQ people who identified with a particular cultural background. This paper seeks to analyze the perceptions of these posters from the OCC team and people outside the team. Ultimately, this is an early evaluation of whether OCC can meet its mandate in conveying their message to linguistic and cultural communities. Through the use of participant observation, interviews, focus groups, archival data analysis, and content analysis, the OCC posters were found to have a relatively positive impact in increasing visibility of LGBTQ people and issues. However, participants noted that using more cultural references and having more romantic images to solidify the LGBTQ message could further strengthen the impact of the posters. There is also the need for the posters to be directed towards the older generation as many of the participants identify the older generation as a key demographic for receiving positive LGBTQ messages