BRUSSELS QUEER GRAPHICS

17.05.2023 > 07.01.2024

From the 1950s on, LGBTQI+ communities in Brussels have used graphic design and developed a specific language. This visual language signals their presence and their commitment to a set of shared principles, identities and values. Shaped by struggle and celebration, turmoil and compromise, this tool of both resistance and resilience fosters an alternative form of collectiveness. Through the materiality, composition, typography, iteration and language used, graphic designers, both professional and amateur, identify and address their message towards specific audiences.

Organized by themes, Brussels Queer Graphics, far from being an exhaustive project, offers an overview of this visual language. This exhibition explores the ways in which the LGBTQI+ communities have expressed themselves and made themselves visible over the last seventy years in Brussels. From 1953 and the birth of the Centre Culturel Belge/Cultureel Centrum België driven by Suzan Daniel to the present day, this exhibition and its accompanying publication invite us to immerse ourselves into a cultural history of the everyday life and the activism of LGBTQI+ individuals, communities, associations and groups. Relying on silence and even the absence of materials, but also on the over-representation of the letter G in the history and the archives, this exhibition reflects an era, a history and many memories.

NAMING

For reasons of inclusivity and conciseness, we chose to use the initialism LGBTQI+ in this exhibition. However, we are aware that other terms may have been used during the period covered in Brussels Queer Graphics.

Warning

Some of the works on display may contain images that may offend or question the sensibilities of visitors.

The Design Museum Brussels team remains available for more information : [email protected]

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

When:

Brussels Queer Graphics
17.05.2023 > 07.01.2024

Where :

Design Museum Brussels
Place de la Belgique 1 – 1020 Brussel

Info: [email protected] / 02 669 49 29

Opening hours: from Monday to Sunday 11am > 7pm

PUBLICATION

Through a wide variety of objects and documents, Queer Graphics (in co-publication with CFC-Éditions) delves into the visual and cultural history of an everyday life carried by the activism of individuals, communities, associations and groups. It takes a fresh look at the history of LGBTQI+ communities. The book is structured around six thematic chapters: Visibilising, Manufacturing, Subverting, Recognising (one another), Revealing and Informing. This project was developed by the Design Museum Brussels and the Structure for Interdisciplinary Research on Gender, Equality and Sexuality (STRIGES) at ULB (Université Libre de Bruxelles) (with the support of the Archives of the City of Brussels, the Carhif-AVG and the Suzan Daniel Fund*). This book was co-authored by Audrey Aegerter, Aline Baudet, Aurélie Bouvart, Jonatan Agra, Marie-Sophie du Montant, Alexandre Donnen, Bart Hellinck, Mathilde Messina, David Paternotte, Charlotte Pezeril, Valérie Piette and Samy Soussi. * Suzan Daniel, born Suzanne De Pues in Brussels in 1918 and died in 2007, was an activist for gay rights in Belgium. She was one of the initiators of the LGBT movement in Belgium. In 1953, she founded the Cultural Centre of Belgium (CCB), the first emancipation group for Belgian gays and lesbians. A year later, she left the board due to sexism and withdrew from the LGBT scene, after which she fell into oblivion. In 1996, the Belgian LGBT Archive and Documentation Centre, founded the same year, was named after her.

Technical information
Release: 16 May 2023
Format: 21 x 27,5 cm
Author: Collectif
Nombre de pages : 128 p.
Price: €18
Trilingual book French-Dutch-English