Wet Paper is a River Towards Liberation: Munnen + Bebe Books + Queerd zine bibliotek + OCD / Hardworking Goodlooking

Dear tongue

The bar we used to play at has changed hands again. You know, the one with the karaoke machine in the back with the yellow text. You could smell the detergent from the laundromat next door, mixed in with day old sweat and gushing tenderness.

Xeroxed pamphlets and gossip rags found their way in too, next to the skin zines and queer activist anger, the paper wrinkled from the wetness that made its way across our bodies and onto the floor.

Rasmus gathered them all up in a suitcase, the queer weight of which was “better to tear down the absence with,” they said. At one point Noam may have even called it a temple: a deviant hot bed of interspecies relations and communities embracing myth-shattering interdependence. I remember, as a young person in an unwelcoming cosmos, the temple, the archive, the karaoke bar, the community were scary things with panoptic eyes.

But us now, we play our own leaking, vernacular tunes, like a gathering river towards liberation. In our new/old bar, they threw the ‘ol karaoke party box into the alley to “clean up the place.” Nevermind them, auntie Clara just got back in town, and she knows how to work the new party box we got. Roll up with your big boy heels and bring the stacks of wet papers, and strap into the trojan horse.

Write soon, Munnen

During the last day of Vaginal Davis’ exhibition HOFPFISTEREI at Index, Munnen is joined by Rasmus Clarke (Queerd zine bibliotek), Noam Youngrak Son (Bebe Books), and Clara Balaguer (OCD, Hardworking Goodlooking) to gossip and reimagine vernacular language models, queer and care as methods, publishing as shapeshifting and cosmos building, on Saturday August 31, from 13.00–20.00. Meals will be provided by chef Sal Reis Trouxa. We will be deep in publishing for community, friendship, desire, and resistance. There will be food, love, reading. Come with us. Bring your friends.

*Image by Marie Godefroy

Accessibility

To enter the space there is a short staircase leading up into the gallery. There is a lift available. The space is quite small and will probably be quite busy during events at this exhibition. Therefore it may be loud and crowded. There are plenty of chairs for seating and rest as well as books and zines to read if you need a break from socialising. A public bathroom accessible is available. Please contact us if you have any questions or accessibility needs and we will try our best to accommodate.

Program

13.00–13.15 Introduction
13.15–14.45 Long live queer spaces! DIT zine workshop hosted by Rasmus Eo Clarke
14.45–15.00 Refresh break
15.00–16.00 Queer Publishing as a Technology of Attention by Noam Youngrak Son
16.00–16.45 Food break
16.45–17.45 Vernacular Language Playlist – A high-low mix tape on the subject of the vernacular by Clara Balaguer
17.45–18.00 Break
18.00–19.00 Conversation & closing
19.00–20.00 Loitering

Long Live Queer Spaces!
a DIT zine workshop hosted by Rasmus Eo Clarke

As an ode to Ms. Davis’ generous method of gathering her communities through DIY publishing, we invite you to join this workshop and contribute to making a zine that celebrates our own communities, queer spaces, places & meeting points. Bring along a text – idea – image as a starting point to begin with. Share your own examples of queer spaces that have meant something to you! Whether that be the iconic ‘Samuels Gay Bar’ lovingly formed by Samuel Girma, hosted within Vaginal Davis program at Index or the group chat you have with your nearest & dearest. All workshop materials will be provided.

Rasmus Eo Clarke is a non-binary artist & graphic designer, who works with zines and DIY/DIT publishing to create queer, trans and differently abled community spaces. They use graphic design and protest typography as queer community care, spanning publishing, printmaking and archiving.

Queer Publishing as a Technology of Attention
a lecture by Noam Youngrak Son

The lecture reflects on the technical potentialities of independent publishing practices both within and outside the cultural industry. It will highlight various technologies relevant to publishing, ranging from mimeographs and risographs to Lulu Express, from browned apples to genetically modified Monsanto soybeans, and from cultural institutions to queer collectives. Queer publishing collectives emerge as a technology of facilitation that enables us to do the dishes together. This approach expands the notion of publishing towards mobilization of attention for collective maintenance.

Noam Youngrak Son is a communication designer, design theorist, and cultural worker. Their design work encompasses small-scale publishing projects, workshops, lectures, writing, net.art, and occasional performative interventions. As a cultural worker, they have co-organized the Ghent-based queer publishing collective Bebe Books since 2021. Son utilizes queer publishing as a technology for mobilizing attention beyond the financialized “scarce resource” of the attention economy.

Vernacular Language Playlist – A high-low mix tape on the subject of the vernacular
a performance/lecture by Clara Balaguer

A lecture and song-pad that includes popular covers, obscure lyrics, original compositions, equivocally generated text to video, and one power ballad dedicated to the vernacular, with love.

Clara Balaguer (Makati City, Pisces Metal Monkey) is a cultural worker, undercommoner, and grey literature circulator. Currently, she curates the Civic Praxis program at BAK, basis voor actuele kunst and midwifes Experimental Publishing at Piet Zwart Institute. Frequently, she operates under collective or individual aliases that disclose her stewardship in any given project, the latest of which is To Be Determined: a loosely organized structure of sleeper cells (Trojan horse networks) that activate–deactivate for leaking access to cultural capital.

Sal Reis Trouxa is a plant-based chef working with sustainability, zero-waste and fermentation. They are especially interested in the politics and social aspects around food and culture. Growing up in a self-sustaining community made by their grandparents in rural Portugal, Sal’s roots continuously inspire them to work with food both as a necessity and as a point of connection and togetherness. Whilst working professionally as a chef, they have also collaborated for multiple artist projects and festivals.

This event is part of the program of activations for the exhibition Vaginal Davis: HOFPFISTEREI. More information about the exhibition here and about the program here.

This exhibition has been developed in collaboration with Moderna Museet in Stockholm, as part of the exhibition Vaginal Davis: Magnificent Product. The museum presents a major retrospective of Vaginal Davis’s work while, in parallel, Index is the locus for research on her text production. Vaginal Davis’s solo exhibition Magnificent Product is initiated by Moderna Museet and extends across several locations in Stockholm: Moderna Museet, Nationalmuseum, Accelerator, Index – The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, Tensta konsthall and MDT (Moderna Dansteatern). Each institution highlights a different aspect of Vaginal Davis’s expansive practice.