Jonas Van der Haegen (°1996, Ghent) is a queer artist who is currently based in Belgium doing his Master’s program at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent. His work functions as a visual research in the artist’s personal life and interests which touches subjects like sexuality, identity, and relationships. He researches the relationship between himself and his models and the connection that is created. His work questions how we approach gender and sexuality in the 21st century in the frame of freedom or the influence of the internet. Van der Haegen has self-published his work in books like ‘MY COCK HARD’ (2016) and ‘You are beautiful, but borderline boring’ (2017). He worked together with BredaPhoto (Netherlands) and you can find his work in the collection of The Helmond Museum (Netherlands).
Love, Fuck & Pray
The series I’m currently working on is called ‘Love, fuck & pray’, which I made in 2018 – 2019 in collaboration with the LGBTQIAP+ center in Tokyo and Osaka in Japan. This work is a visual research about gay sexuality and the male body in Tokyo. Japan has a rich history when it comes to sexuality and the BDSM cult, but is nowadays known as the city with the highest percentage of singles in the world. The rights of LGBTQIAP+ people are still quite undeveloped. Apart from that, Japan is known for sexualizing the female body, but what about the male body? What about male sexuality? This series and book are made up of portraits between myself, the photographer and my models, and the dates. Sometimes romantic, sometimes sexual, sometimes anonymous.
To view more of Jonas Van der Haegen’s work please visit his website.