Noam Youngrak Son

An infectious disease occasionally promotes certain ways of intimacy. For instance, health officials from New York and British Columbia suggested the use of glory holes as part of measures on dating and sex during the coronavirus pandemic to prevent face-to-face contact. Queerness can arise as an unforeseen side effect of the measures against the disease. We can further this by misusing the language of public hygiene as symbols of kink, a face mask as a ball gag, temporary floor marking tapes as bondage tapes, a PCR nose swab as a dilator. Online space, where fake news and memes flourish, is indeed an effective ground for these deliberate misunderstandings to propagate.

2022 February by Noam Youngrak Son
Cathair press (https://www.d-act.org/cathair.html)
@noam_yr

"Gender as a concept is not only applicable to humans. When the idea of gender is applied to the cables, its meaning is reduced into a relationship of insertion. As a non-binary individual and designer, I find this problematic that such way of classifying gender violently erases the existence of everyone that doesn’t neatly fit into those categories. However, instead of insisting on abolishing those terms, I discovered that the idea of gender that we applied to the electric cables functioning in very queer ways that we couldn’t expect." More on www.d-act.org.

The third Publiek Park publication – Walking Guide – combines essays, archival fragments, and artistic voices to trace both the exhibition route at Plantentuin Meise and the historical path that led from the creation of the Jardin Botanique in the heart of Brussels to its relocation outside the city. Following the logic of a quilt, layering different perspectives, textures, and timelines, the book connects artistic narratives with history and reflections on urban gardens, public space, and botanical imaginaries. Just like the exhibition, the publication offers not merely a portrait of a place, but a reflection on the multiplicity that defines it.

Alongside documentation of the exhibition and contributions from the participating artists, this year’s Walking Guide features writings by Nikolaos Akritidis, Denis Diagre-Vanderpelen, Koen Es, Lana Jones, François Makanga, Noam Youngrak Son, and Jean Watt. The two parks are portrayed in photographs by Michiel de Cleene, with book design by Victor Verhelst and Corbin Mahieu bringing all of these elements together.

This publication is made with the generous support of Plantentuin Meise and all partners.