Publication Date

2024

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Evans, Sarah

Degree Name

M.A. (Master of Arts)

Legacy Department

School of Art and Design

Abstract

Contemporary queer artists enact futures that resist abjection and reevaluate the state of our hierarchical classifications of human beings by invoking posthuman drag - constructed assemblages of identities - and combining them with speculative fiction, mythologies, and folklore. Devan Shimoyama, a queer bi-racial Black-identified artist, drags images of parts of his body to present queer Black masculinity in multitudes of ways while simultaneously imbuing them with magical powers and crafting their mythological origins. Maximiliano Mamani, a queer Indigenous Argentinian artist and performer, invokes the historical and political figure of eighteenth-century rebel Bartolina Sisa in his drag persona, Bartolina Xixa, as a means to critique extractivism and colonial violence while also transcending temporal boundaries and decentering whiteness in the drag artform. Sin Wai Kin, a non-binary bi-racial Cantonese artist, uses their expansive list of drag personas whose stories they tell as a means to facilitate critique of false dichotomies such as the gender binary and racial hierarchies as well as harmful institutions such as capitalism and rampant consumerism. Each of these artists have implemented drag, material elements of drag, or have used the act of dragging bodies in their artworks as a means to worldbuild and create positive alternative realities and futures for queer people of color. Bodies of those on the margins of society experience abjection, a literal Othering which denies their existence as natural or human. Through the use of drag and altering the expressions of gender and race on the artists’ bodies, these contemporary artists are blurring the boundaries between the real and the fabricated in order to bring these alternative realities and futures into the present.

Extent

103 pages

Language

en

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

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