Beyond the Margins is a non-profit online publication dedicated to producing content focused on LGBTQIA+ persons and communities across Africa. We aim to bring our readers queer-affirming multimedia content which sheds light – and adds to existing research – on the lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ people across the continent.
The central aim of Beyond the Margins is to foster greater understanding and acceptance of LGBTQIA+ individuals and communities. To do this, we will be working alongside LGBTQIA+ media practitioners (and allies) across Africa to tell stories that give voice to marginalised individuals and communities.
Beyond the Margins was founded, and is run by, by Carl Collison (he/him), a journalist, photographer, filmmaker and researcher, who focuses specifically on producing LGBTIQ-related content from across Africa. A former researcher with Human Rights Watch, Collison was also the Other Foundation’s Rainbow Fellow at the Mail & Guardian.
In 2017, as a result of his queer-focussed journalism, he represented South Africa as a participant in the U.S Government States Department’s International Visitors Leadership Programme. He was shortlisted for the 2018 Gerald Kraak Award and Anthology. He was also included in the inaugural #Awesome50 list, which recognises the work done by people across Africa to better the lives of the continent’s LGBTIQ people. Short stories he has written have been included in the collection of essays, They Called Me Queer and For The Love of the Land.
Documentary films (and photographic exhibitions) he has put together have been screened in film festivals and events in Argentina, Kenya, Canada, Brazil, South Africa, Mozambique, U.S.A, the United Kingdom as well as the 2020 Pride Afrique.
In April 2023, he held his first solo international exhibition (featuring photography, text and documentary films looking into queer lives across Africa) at the Western Oregon University.
In August 2023, the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice’s annual “Economies of Violence” public event centred around Collison and his multimedia exhibition, Islanded (No More), which he has been putting together over the past few years covering the lived experiences of LGBTIQ+ people across Africa. The exhibition focuses on the intersections between queerness and religious and traditional belief systems in various parts of Africa.