What does drag have to do with it?

Three trajectories for thinking of drag as an undisciplined artistic language

Abstract

This article investigates possible conceptions and relations of drag as an interdisciplinary artistic language, proposing its understanding also within the field of visual arts. Starting from the impossibility of establishing a single definition of this practice, it analyzes the trajectories of three drag artists active in the drag scene of Florianópolis, Brazil – Victoria Becker, Arsênica, and Patty Faria – in order to identify convergences, divergences, and distinct ways of understanding and practicing this artistic language. The research is based on semi-structured interviews conducted with the artists, articulated with the observations of one of the authors, Eco Zazu (Allan Cardoso), as a member of the local drag community, and informed by dialogues with queer/cuir and gender studies. The analysis is organized around four main axes: the artists' first experiences with drag; the relationships between drag and gender construction; community ties, drag families, and networks of care; and the different conceptions of what constitutes drag practice. The findings indicate that each artist's first drag experience remains closely connected to the conceptions they later develop, while also highlighting how social markers such as gender, race, class, and personal trajectory shape artistic production and forms of belonging within the community. The article concludes that drag operates as a visual, performative, and relational language capable of producing images, constructing bodies, and reshaping ways of seeing oneself and others, resisting fixed definitions and reaffirming its multiple, processual, and anti-normative character.