Noé Duboutay (er/they) performs, writes and creates installations and objects. His practice draws on historical and fictional narratives, borrows visual and linguistic motifs from other eras and translates this research and personal experience into text, objects and performances.
Noé Duboutay approaches queer historiography not in the sense of a definitive report, but as a speculative, participatory practice – an attempt to find out what and who has been overlooked and systematically erased. The transbody is always present, even if it remains invisible. The works question and blur the boundaries of strongly defined terms such as “knight”, “hero” and “man” and fantasize them as mutable, queer and soft. Non-human and animal-like creatures are often representative of personal worlds of experience and the materialities are also directly related to the narrative.
Noé Duboutay’s artistic practice draws on experiences in/with a transmasculine body and uses these as a starting point to question and navigate social notions of masculinity, patriarchy and heteronormativity, among others. The works are politically motivated and oppose the rise of fascism and its nostalgic wishful thinking of a fixed, hierarchical past. Noé Duboutay’s works are not only a critique, but also a search for queer community and allies, focusing on vulnerability as a form of resistance and connection.