Hyper
Hyper; -expression, -gender, -femininity, -masculinity
Drag performance and wrestling share several traits. A DIY culture emerging in fabulous outfits and make-up. Eccentric personas, dramatic storylines, flamboyance and bodily performance. They both embody a subversive, hyperbolic expression of gender, all in consensual agreement with the audience.
Where masculinity is norm, the hyper-masculine flies under the radar. No one uses wrestling as a populist weapon of choice. Yet the hyper-femininity of drag queens is used in populist rhetoric time and time again.
Within the context of a heated cultural debate, I engage in photography to explore and expose the queer borderlands between artistic performance and gender performativity; between the hyper-femininity of drag queens and the hyper-masculinity of wrestling athletes.
This project is ongoing.
The Overlapping Realms of Hyper-Femininity and Hyper-Masculinity
Within the framework of this project, the concepts of hyper-femininity and hyper-masculinity converge and resonate with the personas of drag artists and wrestling athletes. Drawing upon theories of performativity, the photos hope to capture the embodiment of these gendered expressions, illuminating the heightened enactment of femininity by drag artists and the amplified theatrics of masculinity embraced by wrestling athletes.
