No Man's Lands is an ongoing international photography project exploring the intersections of LGBTQ+ identity with migration, displacement, race, disability, faith, class, gender, mental health and belonging. Since 2016, Mualem-Doron has collaborated with LGBTQ+ people from across the world to create portraits that challenge stereotypes and celebrate the richness and diversity of queer lives. Every photograph is co-created: participants choose how they wish to be represented and the stories they want to tell, building a growing global archive of resilience, dignity and self-determination.

The project recognises that no queer experience exists in isolation. It explores how sexuality and gender intersect with multiple lived realities – from refugees rebuilding their lives, trans people navigating visibility and migrants searching for home, to those living with grief, addiction, discrimination, economic precarity or cultural displacement. Rather than focusing on victimhood, No Man's Lands celebrates resistance, solidarity and the extraordinary ways people create belonging in uncertain times.

Over the past decade the project has travelled internationally, with exhibitions at Pride Art Berlin (Germany), Greatmore Studios (Cape Town, South Africa), the Lionel Wendt Art Gallery (Colombo, Sri Lanka), Dorset Youth Pride (Isle of Portland) and the Brighton Beach Outdoor Gallery, with forthcoming presentations at Dorchester Museum, Worthing Seafront Shelter and other UK venues. With each new location the project has grown through new collaborations, reflecting both local experiences and the shared realities that connect LGBTQ+ communities across cultures and continents.

Shown in Margate during Pride, No Man's Lands celebrates the power of visibility, intersectionality and chosen family. It reminds us that queer communities have always found strength across differences, and that the spaces between identities, cultures and places are often where the most powerful stories – and the deepest connections – are made.

About the artist

Dr Gil Mualem-Doron is a British multidisciplinary artist, photographer, curator, researcher and educator whose socially engaged practice explores LGBTQ+ identities, migration, belonging, ecology and social justice. Working across photography, installation, performance, film and participatory practice, he creates collaborative projects that challenge dominant narratives and amplify voices often excluded from public representation.

Central to his practice is the exploration of liminality – the physical, social and psychological spaces between identities, borders and systems of belonging. Alongside No Man's Lands, projects including The New Union Flag, Cry, the Beloved Country and Sea of Change examine queer visibility, migration, environmental justice and collective memory through photography, participation and site-responsive installation.

He holds a PhD in Architecture and Urbanism from Delft University of Technology, where his doctoral research explored abandoned urban landscapes through queer and postcolonial perspectives, examining how the practice of cruising transforms marginal spaces into sites of desire, belonging and alternative social relations. This research continues to shape his interest in thresholds, archives and overlooked landscapes.

As Founder and Creative Director of the Socially Engaged Art Salon (SEAS), Mualem-Doron has established an internationally recognised platform bringing together artists, activists, academics and communities through exhibitions, workshops and collaborative research addressing LGBTQ+ rights, migration, climate justice and anti-racism.

LGBTQ+ lives have been at the heart of his practice for more than two decades. Grounded in collaboration and shared authorship, his work with LGBTQ+ migrants, refugees, trans and non-binary people and queer activists creates new visual archives of resilience, intimacy and belonging while challenging invisibility and exclusion.

His work has been exhibited extensively in the UK, including at Tate Modern, Turner Contemporary, Hastings Contemporary, Brighton Museum, the People's History Museum, Royal Museums Greenwich and Pride Art Berlin, and internationally in solo exhibitions in galleries and museums in Israel-Palestine, Brazil, Germany, Norway, South Africa and Sri Lanka.