Young Birds from Strange Mountains

The Title „Young Birds From Strange Mountains” is borrowed from a poem by the Vietnamese gay-closeted poet Ngô Xuân Diệu (1916-1985), who was a correspondent member at Akademie der Künste during GDR times.

Some of his poems were censored for depicting same-sex intimacy, which at the time did not align with a social communist society. “Young Birds” can be interpreted as representing the experience of queer people living in in societies where they struggle to find belonging, yet still leave a lasting mark on history. It can also symbolize artists, archivists and activists emerging from “strange mountains”, continuously reimagining ways of living differently.

“Young Birds from Strange Mountains” features exciting, extraordinary works by queer artists from Southeast Asia and its Diaspora, particularly those with backgrounds from Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Cambodia.

With different collaborative and community-based approaches, the curators and artists show attempt to rebuild and re-investigate ancestral knowledge as well as engage with multiple archives such as directly from Schwules Museum, A Queer Museum Hanoi and Queer Indonesia Archive, enriching them with contemporary artistic practices.

Many political strides have been made recently, such as the recent legalization of same-sex marriage in Thailand or the founding of the world’s only Islamic boarding school for transgender persons in Indonesia. However, crucial queer histories and practices in Southeast Asia have been erased or at least rendered invisible by nationalist policies. Precolonial roles of queer people as shamans are often neglected, and indigenous traditions like Ludruk in East Java are fading, while Vietnam's Mother Goddess religion (Đạo Mẫu) remains marginalized.

There is a gap of knowledge about queer people and practices in Southeast Asia and its diaspora, both in Germany as well as within the region itself. This exhibition aims to reclaim these overlooked connections and bring them to the open discussion.

With materials and stories from the Schwules Museum Berlin, Một bảo tàng queer (A Queer Museum Hanoi), Queer Indonesia Archive (QIA), Thai Film Archive and other community and personal archives.

Funded by the Cross-Disciplinary Funding of the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion.