Young Birds from Strange Mountains. Queer Art from Southeast Asia and its Diaspora – Schwules Museum Berlin | 29.11.2024-04.08.2025

The Schwules Museum Berlin recently opened the exhibition “Young Birds from Strange Mountains.” It features exciting and unusual works by queer artists from Southeast Asia and its diaspora, particularly from Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Cambodia.

Image above: Wax Follies, female impersonator group from Penang, 1982, found photo collection of Hoo Fan Chon.

The title, roughly translated as “Young Birds from Strange Mountains,” is taken from a poem by the closeted gay Vietnamese poet Ngô Xuân Diệu (1916–1985), who was a correspondent member of the Academy of Arts during the time of the GDR. Some of his poems were censored because they depicted same-sex intimacy, which was not compatible with the social norms of a communist society at the time. “Young Birds” can be interpreted as a symbol for the experiences of queer people in a society where they fight for their belonging and yet leave a lasting mark in history. It can also represent artists, archivists, and activists who emerge from “strange mountains” and constantly rethink how to live differently.

The exhibition “Young Birds from Strange Mountains” showcases exciting, unconventional works by queer artists from Southeast Asia and its diaspora, particularly from Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Cambodia. Using various collaborative and community-based approaches, the curators and artists aim to restore and re-explore ancestral knowledge. They engage with different archives, such as the Schwules Museum, the A Queer Museum Hanoi, and the Queer Indonesia Archive, enriching them with contemporary artistic practices.

Recently, significant political advances have been made, such as the recent legalization of same-sex marriage in Thailand and the establishment of the world’s only Islamic boarding school for transgender people in Indonesia. However, key queer histories and practices in Southeast Asia have been erased or at least rendered invisible by nationalist politics. The pre-colonial role of queer people as shamans is often neglected, and indigenous traditions such as the Ludruk theater in East Java are fading, while the Vietnamese Mother Goddess religion (Đạo Mẫu) continues to be marginalized. Queer Southeast Asian spirituality and practices are often overlooked or misinterpreted in Western contexts.

There is a knowledge gap regarding queer people and practices in Southeast Asia and its diaspora, both in Germany and within the region itself. This exhibition aims to address these overlooked connections and bring them into discussion.

Curatorial Team: Sarnt Utamachote, Hải Nam Nguyễn, Ferdiansyah Thajib

Archive curators: Thảo Hồ, Ragil Huda

Featuring artistic works by Kelvin Atmadibrata, Hoo Fan Chon, Suriya Sam-Khuth, Việt Lê, Indra Liusuari, Oat Montien, Nu, Natthapong Samakkaew, Shasti, Eda Phanlert Sriprom, Tamarra, Thảo Miên Trần.

Kelvin Atmadibrata (b. 1988, Jakarta, Indonesia) recruits superpowers awakened by puberty and adolescent fantasies. Equipped with shōnen characters, kōhai hierarchy, and macho ero-kawaii, he often personifies power and strength into partially canonical and fan-fiction antiheroes to challenge the masculine meta and erotica. He works primarily with performances, often accompanied by drawings, mixed-media collages, and objects, which are then assembled into installations. Approached as bricolages, Kelvin translates narratives and reconstructs personifications based on RPG (Role-Playing Game) theories and pop mythologies. His recent works converse in the language of minimalist erotica, illustrating his exploration of mecha and transhumanist fantasy. Also motivated by the craft of contemporary tattoo, he experiments with the process of image-marking on skin as a continuation of his fascination with living sculptures, breathing mannequins, and bodies as pedestals.

Hoo Fan Chon (b. 1982, Selangor) is a Malaysian visual artist based in Penang. He completed a BA in Photography at the University of Arts London – London College of Communication in 2010. He co-founded the art collective Run Amok (2012-2017) in George Town, Penang. Hoo was one of the recipients of the first cycle of the SEA AiR—Studio Residencies for Southeast Asian Artists in the European Union (SEA AiR), organized by the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore in 2022. Recently, he participated in the Ilham Art Show 2022 (Kuala Lumpur, 2022), “Myth Makers — Spectrosynthesis III” (Hong Kong, 2023), and “The Oceans and The Interpreters” (Dhaka, 2023). His solo exhibitions include “The World is Your Restaurant” (Kuala Lumpur, 2021) and “Let Them Eat Salmon” (Singapore, 2023). By reframing everyday life with irony and sharp humor, his work observes the fluctuations and transitions between social classes, the official and the informal, the highbrow and the lowbrow.

Suriya Sam-Khuth (b. 1998, she/her) is a Cambodian-American collage artist and curator from Rochester, Minnesota. She situates her work within a lineage of artists who follow, reinterpret, and document the presence of trans womanhood in history. Using the languages of serigraphy, photography, and collage, she creates paper assemblages that capture her fascination with how we construct our sense of self from the contexts in which we exist. She is particularly interested in exploring processes of becoming through the framework of collage, as it revolves around acts of accumulation and reinvention. In Suriya’s work, collecting, unfolding, listening to, writing on, and reshaping fragments serve as gestures towards mapping out her understandings of transness.

Suriya recently completed a two-year residency in the Studio 400 Incubator Program for emerging artists at Public Functionary. She is currently a Thomas J. Watson Fellow, where she is researching how trans artists and archives shape worlds that center the lineages, desires, safety, and dreams of their own communities in Argentina, Brazil, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Cambodia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Samoa.

Việt Lê (b. 1976) is a Vietnamese-born American artist, writer, and curator. Lê is an associate professor at the California College of the Arts. He has been published in positions: Asia critique, Crab Orchard Review, American Quarterly, Amerasia Journal, Art Journal, and in anthologies such as Writing from the Perfume River, Strange Cargo, The Spaces Between Us, and Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art, among others. His solo art exhibitions include lovebang! (2016) at Kellogg University Art Gallery, Los Angeles; vestige (2015) at H Gallery, Bangkok; and tan nÁRT cõi lòng | heARTbreak! (Nhà Sàn Collective, Hanoi). Lê has presented his work at venues such as The Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada; UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, USA; DoBaeBacSa Gallery, Seoul, Korea; Japan Foundation, Vietnam; 1a Space, Hong Kong; Bangkok Art & Cultural Center (BACC), Thailand; Civitella Ranieri, Italy; Shanghai Biennale, China; Rio Gay Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and other locations.

Indra Liusuari is an Australian-based interdisciplinary artist from Sumatra and architecture student whose practice encompasses audiovisual media, documented performances, site-interventionist installations and print media. Conceptually, Liusuari focuses on critical discourses on the presence of white supremacy in contemporary lifestyles, manifested through absurd exaggeration and satirical self-exotification. Brutalist architecture and industrial design, audiovisual remnants of the late 1990s and early 2000s, and the underground rave scene have become formative influences in his practice.

Oat Montien (b. 1989) is one of Thailand’s most prominent queer artists. Growing up in a brothel in Bangkok, Oat has always been inspired by sexuality and nightlife. His background in museology has shaped his artistic practice towards queering the historical canon. His drawings and paintings interrogate the intimacy between the artist and his models, with a strong focus on their gender identities. Montien has previously exhibited at institutions such as the Patpong Museum (Bangkok), the National Library of Thailand (Bangkok), Chulalongkorn University Museum of Natural History (Bangkok), Thailand Cultural Center (Bangkok), Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (Bangkok), V&A Museum of Childhood (London), The Book Club (London), Chester Beatty Library (Dublin), and Today Art Museum (Beijing). In 2020, he founded the Boddhisattava Gallery, Thailand’s first exclusively LGBTQ+ gallery. Montien was selected as an artist-in-residence at the Tom of Finland Foundation in 2022 and again in 2023. His previous publications include London Scene (2015), Paris Souvenirs (2016), London Museums (2018), Eros (2018), Bibliophilia (2020), and Solarium (2023).

Thanh “Nu” Mai (they/he/Nu) is an artist, art organizer, and social activist. Their work serves as a way to connect with their roots and empower others. Nu co-founded Vănguard—a zine for the LGBTQ+ community in Vietnam aimed at promoting awareness and empowerment for this group. The issues of the zine are displayed and researched in various journal libraries worldwide. In 2019, Vanguard was archived by the Library of Congress. Nu has been invited to speak at projects such as the Địa Project, the U.S. Embassy, Northeastern University, and M.I.T. University. Nu is also the co-founder of Cháosdowntown, the first art hostel in Ho Chi Minh City, which hosts performances, exhibitions, talks, and collaborations for both local and international artists. Their work focuses on various ways to heal the Vietnamese diaspora from oppression.

Natthapong Samakkaew, a visual artist based in Krabi, Thailand and Berlin, Germany, graduated with a BA in Illustration from Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle, Germany in 2018. In his thesis Move Your Body, Natthapong explored the depiction of people in darkrooms within Berlin’s queer party scene, which earned him the Best Experiment Award at the university’s annual prize. Natthapong’s work has been shown in a variety of international exhibitions, including National Art Center Tokyo (2017), Kunststiftung Halle (2018), Aquamediale 13 Art Festival (2019), BBK Leipzig e.V. (2019), Artburst Berlin (2019), Projektraum 145 (2019), Galerie im Körnerpark (2022), Fluctoplasma Festival (2022), Hamburger Bahnhof Museum as part of Unthaitled (2022), Zemin Berlin (2024) and Galerie Wedding (2024).

Andara Shastika or Shasti (born 1992 in Jakarta – now based in Kassel) is an artist and organizer who cultivates multidisciplinary and multidirectional practices and areas of interest. As a visual artist, Shasti works with performance and digital media on themes such as language, revenge, curses, demonic voices, hauntings and ghosts. As an organizer at the intersection of art and activism, she is active in various Kassel-based intersectional queer feminist and BPoC-led collaborative contexts, including the livestream platform TERRARISTA TV, the BPoC artists’ initiative Cura Han Hati and the first BPoC Festival. She is currently an artistic assistant to Prof. Dr. Swantje Lichtenstein and Prof. Maria Schleiner and is working on the research project “ComArts” at the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences. Shasti is also the singer of the hardcore band ORANG.

Eda Phanlert Sripom (1985, Thailand, She) is a multidimensional trans* artist and designer based in Berlin, Germany. After graduating in fashion from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, she worked for over 10 years as a fashion designer. In 2015, she moved to Paris and completed the Image Program at the Institut Français de la Mode. Her manifestations earned her several awards, including the International Talent Support ITS2018 in Italy, which proved to be pivotal. Eda uses clothing as a non-linear medium to tell her personal yet intimate stories, shaping her vision between art and fashion through various narratives—such as through collective vintage handkerchiefs made entirely from spiritual uniforms. Eda also participated in the Group Exhibition of the Photographic Exploration Project (PEP) in 2019, titled New Talent, showcasing her series JESUISEDA at Galerie Tête in Berlin.

In 2020, Eda gathered 12 female artists to present their works in a month-long exhibition called A Room Full of Women at ATT19 Gallery in Bangkok, Thailand. With her Buddhist faith and a relaxed outlook on life, she made the exhibition not a space free from sexism. By weaving together narratives from 12 different perspectives, the exhibition addressed gender and equality issues often overlooked. Later, in 2022, Eda was curated for The Crossing the Line exhibition, which told stories of marginalized workers separated by various constructed “lines,” and showcased works by six Thai women and queer artists at the SAC Gallery in Bangkok, Thailand.

Tamarra (she/her) lives and works in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. As an artist, Tamarra uses a variety of media, including performances and textiles, to express her artistic ideas. Tamarra has participated in numerous artistic projects both in Indonesia and internationally. Notable projects include M/Others and Future Humans at Testing Ground in Melbourne (2018), the Unsung Museum in Yogyakarta, Jakarta, and Bandung (2016-2017), and Ancient MSG at Gertrude Glasshouse in Melbourne (2015). Tamarra is also deeply involved in many research and project initiatives, particularly those focusing on transgender issues.

In 2019, Tamarra collaborated with Emma Franklin on a study about the Bissu community in South Sulawesi, which plays an important religious and cultural role in the region. Additionally, Tamarra developed the project We Are Human, which involves a community of street children and transgender individuals in Indonesia. We Are Human includes various activities such as handicraft workshops and the initiation of a transgender vocal group called Amuba, providing a platform for the creative expression of transgender people.

Trần Thảo Miên (b. 1991) is an installation and textile artist from Vietnam whose works celebrate the individuality and equality of all beings and advocate for species equalism. Notable exhibitions include Means of Productions (Lunch Hour, New York, USA, 2024), Mind & Machines (Vietnamese Women’s Museum, Hanoi & Hai An Gallery, HCMC, 2023), Open Studio (San-Art, HCMC, 2023), A Blink in a Spacetime (The International Centre for Interdisciplinary Science and Education, Quy Nhon, 2022), The Foliage IV (Vincom Center for Contemporary Art, Hanoi, 2022), and Citizen Earth (Vietnam Museum of Biology, Hanoi, 2020).

Miên is a Fellow of the Mekong Cultural Hub’s Creative Action (2024) and is actively involved in educational programs organized by institutions such as RMIT University (Vietnam), Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (Singapore), and Pratt Institute (USA). She is the co-founder of the award-winning design collective Sonson, the open collective ddur.productions, which supports exhibition projects, and AiRViNe, a network of artist-in-residence programs in Vietnam.

WHEN?

Friday, November 29, 2024 – Monday, August 4, 2025.

Monday, Wednesday, Friday: 12 pm – 6 pm
Thursday: 12 pm – 8 pm
Saturday: 2 pm – 7 pm
Sunday: 2 pm – 6 pm
Tuesday: Closed

WHERE?

Schwules Museum
Lützowstraße 73
10785 Berlin