Noam studeerde vorig jaar met onderscheiding af aan de Design Academy Eindhoven.
Hen zegt mythes te schrijven voor de stemlozen. Deze mythes kunnen de meest uiteenlopende vormen aannemen; van boeken, over performances tot 3D geprinte seksspeeltjes. Hen is gefascineerd door het onverwachte dat goed vormgegeven fictie kan blootleggen en de kritische politieke discussies die het aanzwengelt. Hun identiteit als een queer person of colour is een van de snijpunten van hun kunstpraktijk.
Noam Youngrak Son resideert van 15 maart tot en met 10 april in Het Bos en neemt ook deel aan de Vruchtbare Grond Expo van 21 april tot en met 1 mei 2022.
Where are you from and how does that affect your work?
(Queer diasporic) Korean
Being a queer Korean diapora is certainly one of the crucial intersections of my practice and personality, however it doesn’t solely define who I am and what I do. I try not to make myself only represented by my national background or gender identity since I believe overlooking the intersectionality flattens the perception of an identity.
Who are your biggest artistic influences?
I love the fictional world building of afro-futurist writers such as Octavia Butler. I sincerely appreciate the courage of the people including Marsha P. Johnson who fought in the Stonewall uprising of 1969. Apart from these historic figures, I also learn a lot during my everyday practices from my friends and colleagues
Tell us about your favorite medium.
The mediums that I’m planning to focus on are publication, public workshops, digital moving images and coded “net.art”. These are the artforms that can be produced without being overly reliant on resources, but still able to reach a considerable number of perceivers.
What's the purpose or goal of your work?
The main question of my practice is about less normative methods of disseminating deviant narratives. I attempt to convey stories of the marginalized bodies (which often include my own body), into designed forms that do not conform to the white-straight-colonial-classist-abelist-anthropocentric gaze.
Tell me about your techniques for overcoming creative blocks
To make my practice more sustainable, I’m focusing on downscaling nowadays. This is in other words to resist the temptation to make my works driven by the scale. Going domestic is a good strategy to keep my practice agile and radical. Most of the publications that I create are from a digital printer and a riso printer that I have at home. I also have 3D printers at home so that I can produce my own artifacts without outsourcing. And more importantly, a significant part of what I produce doesn’t have a physical form: either by being fully digital, or by being a temporary ritual (such as a public workshop). This enables my projects to be able to discuss urgent topics in a relatively short period of time using less resources. I learned this when I was trying to produce relevant content at home while the pandemic forced everyone to stay inside.
How do you seek out opportunities?
I’ve been relying on social media such as Instagram, however I don’t think relying on a corporate-owned platform renders the practice superficial and overly spectacle-driven. I’ve been looking for alternative channels such as my own website (http://www.d-act.org), Onlyfans, etc. Also, self-publishing (http://www.d-act.org/cathair.html) and zine making is a significant part of my practice is an effort to establish a way of spreading thoughts without relying too much on normative platforms.