My thesis project is a documentation of the choices we all make when it comes to our dress and behavior, and what these choices reveal or conceal about our identities.
Identity is a constructed performance. Each day, you play a starring role in a series of considered actions that interlock to produce a version of you. From day to day, the role may change, but the actor remains the same.
We all perform as different versions of ourselves throughout the day, but what happens when the performance we give is merely just a facade? What happens to the George Eliots, the Norma Jeanes, Jackie Shanes or RuPauls of the world?
Each year, more and more people come out of the “closet” in order to live their lives in earnest as members of the LGBTQ+ community. My research focused on those who have written their own scripts by defining their own identities. Drag performers, trans men and women, queer folk who have always had to fight for representation in their communities were the catalysts for this project, but the practice of constructing your own identity truth does not belong to the queer community alone.
For many years, drag has been perceived as a taboo act, but there is much more to it than makeup, heels and wigs. For what is drag but identity performance? What makes a Drag Queen any different than a woman adopting a male pen name in order to promote her authored works? What separates drag personae from the hyper-feminized, hyper-sexualized female personae that populate western pop culture?
These questions of perceived difference and “otherness” are the heart of this project. Instead of providing answers, I wanted to inspire curiosity, to encourage personal investigation and introspection. Our own identities are puzzles we must solve on our own, my thesis is a reminder that we all must find our own answers at our own pace.