For the art therapy session, I made the participants concentrate on the word ‘Happiness’ and what it meant for them. They are, on several occasions, called out to with offensive names because of their sexual orientation. Even in liberal countries like Bangladesh, they are to keep their identities camouflaged with their un-true selves.

The work produced by the participants gave me an insight of their true identities also bearing witness to their individualities and what really they wanted from the society, ‘Acceptance’. The second exercise focused on closed connections. The participants had a hard time in having eye contact with the general public. They all were grouped in pairs. Transparencies were used to draw the contours of the partner sitting in front of another. The task was reversed. The end result depicted the concentration level of the person towards understanding their partner and building a connection with them. Both the sketches were placed next to each other.

In the end, all the participants giggled, smiled, and even were surprised to witness their artistic abilities. The drawings became their inner voices, as they perceived their own realities for the first time. They were content with their work and stunned to see how connections could be built with pure honesty without any masking of disillusionment.