Dragged

I came to MFA Design and Technology after attending Brown University, where I studied English and Gender and Sexuality Studies. During my undergraduate degree, I noticed a clear gap in gender studies and cultural writing around drag outside of the “queen” designation. While some literature exists on drag kings, much of the contemporary drag I was seeing, particularly in New York’s bars and nightlife spaces, was largely absent from academic and archival discourse. Despite its central role in queer culture, drag remains underrepresented in conventional histories.

What exists instead is often theoretical: definitions of what drag is, rather than accounts of how it is lived. Rarely do we hear directly from performers about what drag feels like in practice, or how it is shaped within community spaces. This creates a disconnect between theory and lived experience, and a broader gap in how queer cultural production is recorded. Dragged emerged in response to this absence, within a moment where queer communities in the United States are facing renewed political scrutiny and legislative attack. Drag has become a visible site of cultural conflict, and questions of who gets documented – and how – feel increasingly urgent.

The project brings together interviews with drag performers, performance photography, and written reflections from the New York drag scene. These materials are collected into a series of limited-edition books that combine image and text, centering performers as authors of their own histories. Alongside the printed work, Dragged extends into a digital replica, hosting a digitised version of the project online. Together, these form a hybrid archive of contemporary NYC drag: built from within the community, and grounded in lived, embodied experience.

Preorder the book here, or check out the website version here.