Work

    Death Drop is a body of work that uses the language and aesthetics of drag culture to understand the making of queer identity. A death drop, a popular dance move, features a performer dramatically falling back onto the floor with arms outstretched, shocking and impressing audiences. Originating from dancers in the ballroom scene, this move, colloquially called a "death drop" and widely recognized through RuPaul’s Drag Race, is one of the five essential steps of Voguing. Voguing, a highly stylized dance form, emerged during the Harlem Renaissance from the Black and Latino LGBTQ communities, imitating the striking poses of fashion models. While the term “death drop” refers to the dance move, I understand it to serve as a figure of speech for when genderqueer, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary people shed the identity and its expectations imposed on them at birth. It represents the bold and brave revelation of self; an identity they have consciously and confidently constructed, reflecting their personal interpretations of gender and selfhood.

    Death Drop is a series of images born out of my love of drag and the profound role it has played in my understanding of gender as a nonbinary person. Drag has shown me the joy that comes with living freely and boldly. Either with a wig and a full face of makeup, or in the absence of adornment, drag teaches and allows wearers the art of asserting their true self. The word death drop recontextualizes the dance move to describe that self-realization.

    This series also examines the fluid boundaries between portraiture, self-portraiture, character study, and caricature, particularly in the context of drag identities and personas. Drag, in its exaltation and deconstruction of gender expectations, offers a space where individuals explore facets of themselves that might otherwise feel daunting to confront directly. Within this space, identity is both a performance and an extension of self, complicating the traditional definitions of photographic representation. When I photograph drag personas, I find myself questioning: Is this a portrait of a constructed character, or a self-portrait—an intimate reflection of the person behind the performance? The act of transformation in drag blurs the distinction between what is “real” and what is “performed,” challenging the rigidity of photographic labels. By capturing these personas, I explore the fluidity of identity, the interplay between performance and self-revelation, and the ways in which drag serves as both a form of empowerment and a means of self-discovery.

    Portraits of my chosen family, members of the Haus of John, Donna Roll, Fuck Ass Bobara, and Anne Bone, among others, and self-portraits of Sienna Type draw upon the language and aesthetics of funerary rituals and death culture to make sense of the complicated passage of understanding gender for oneself. Death Drop is a collection of images that punctuate the change from a rejected identity, one assigned and expected at birth, to one of deliberate choices regarding presentation: a rightful identity.

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