Queer graphics

From the 1950s onwards, the LGBTQI+ communities in Brussels developed a visual language that ensured a certain visibility for their members and their activities. This visual grammar translates and transmits commitments to shared identities and values. It informs and represents, conceals and reveals, recognises and meets, subverts and challenges, shares joys and sorrows, celebrates, flirts and loves. Marked by struggle and celebration, agitation and compromise, graphic design becomes a tool of resistance, recognition and resilience. Evolving over the decades, it promotes alternative forms of community.

Through a wide range of objects and documents, Queer Graphics delves into the visual and cultural history of everyday life, driven by the activism of individuals, communities, associations and groups. It takes a fresh look at the history of LGBTQI+ communities.

The book is structured around 7 thematic chapters: Naming, Visibilising, Fabricating, Subverting, Recognising, Revealing and Informing.

The project was developed by the Design Museum Brussels and the ULB’s Structure for Interdisciplinary Research on Gender, Equality and Sexuality (STRIGES), with the support of the Brussels City Archives, Carhif-AVG and the Suzan Daniel Fund*.

The book was written by a group of authors.