Bebe Books is an independent publishing and artistic practice initiated in 2017 by Ruud van Moorleghem and Mert Şen. Originating from homemade fanzines, it has developed into a practice that unfolds across queer publishing, design research, installation, and institutionally engaged public programmes.
Conceived as an alternative to the exclusions of institutional and academic contexts, Bebe Books approaches publishing as both medium and methodology. Books, exhibitions, parties, workshops, and installations are understood as social tools that convene publics, activate discourse, and enable collective imagination. Its early interest in counter-mapping, redefining place through lived experience, continues to ground the work in practices of gathering and exchange.
Its organisational ethos remains deliberately fluid, treating structure as a field of research. Care and accountability, particularly towards invisible forms of labour, shape how projects are produced and shared. Resisting the depoliticisation of queer culture, the practice affirms collectivities as sites of critique, experimentation, and interdependence.
Operating as a cultural commons, Bebe Books builds infrastructures that are shifting, porous, and experimental. Its projects transform rooms into spaces of thought and relation, sustaining the spark that emerges when collectivity is practiced not only as a method but as a form of life.
Bebe Books has been a resident at Kunstencentrum Viernulvier since September 2021 and is a resident at Netwerk Aalst since 2023.
Conceived as an alternative to the exclusions of institutional and academic contexts, Bebe Books approaches publishing as both medium and methodology. Books, exhibitions, parties, workshops, and installations are understood as social tools that convene publics, activate discourse, and enable collective imagination. Its early interest in counter-mapping, redefining place through lived experience, continues to ground the work in practices of gathering and exchange.
Its organisational ethos remains deliberately fluid, treating structure as a field of research. Care and accountability, particularly towards invisible forms of labour, shape how projects are produced and shared. Resisting the depoliticisation of queer culture, the practice affirms collectivities as sites of critique, experimentation, and interdependence.
Operating as a cultural commons, Bebe Books builds infrastructures that are shifting, porous, and experimental. Its projects transform rooms into spaces of thought and relation, sustaining the spark that emerges when collectivity is practiced not only as a method but as a form of life.
Bebe Books has been a resident at Kunstencentrum Viernulvier since September 2021 and is a resident at Netwerk Aalst since 2023.