Noé Duboutay (he/they) performs, writes, and creates installations and objects. His practice draws on historical and fictional narratives, borrowing imagery and language from different eras and translating those researches and personal experiences into text, objects, and performances.
Noé Duboutay approaches queer historiography not in the sense of a definitive account, but as a speculative, embodied practice – an attempt to seek out what and who have been silenced, overlooked, and systematically erased. The trans body is always present, even when invisible. The works seek to blur the boundaries of heavily defined concepts, such as „knight“, „hero“, and „man“, fantasizing them as mutable, queer, and soft. Non-human and animal-like beings often represent personal worlds of experience, and the materials used are a direct reference to the narratives.
Noé Duboutay’s artistic practice draws from experiences in/with a transmasculine body using this as a starting point to question and navigate societal implications of masculinity, patriarchy, and heteronormativity, among others. The work takes a political stance, pushing back against the rise of fascism and its nostalgic fantasy of a fixed, hierarchical past. As much as they are a critique, Noé Duboutay‘s works also seek queer allyship and kinship – with a focus on vulnerability as a form of resistance and connection.