We invite you to join the community event run by drag kings about drag kings for maybe soon to be drag kings…? No pressure, we will just come together to discuss some of the problems facing the drag industry: namely, the lack of representation of drag kings in the mainstream media. Is there something we as a society and the target audience can do about it? With the support of Peemoti Keskus, your local Tartu drag kings Lõvikõva and Oleandro will help move the evening away from RuPaul and towards the appreciation and visibility of the craft they themselves represent. 

We invite you to read through some of the news articles published in the last few years to get that feminist blood pumping. Upon request the legendary “The Drag King Book” by Del LaGrace Volcano and Jack Halberstam (Serpent’s Tail, 1999) can be sent out in a scanned format to draw inspiration from the kings of the 90s: DM us!

Articles:

• • Amanda Chemeche (April 22, 2022) The Case for the Kings.  Jezebel.com. RuPaul’s Drag Race all but defines what drag is and who can perform it. The world’s best drag kings would like a word.
  • Russ Martin (June 16, 2022) Drag Has a Gender Pay Gap Problem: Drag kings work as hard as queens. Why do they make less? Fashion Magazine.
  • Hazel Cills (March 8, 2018) As Drag Becomes More Popular Than Ever, Drag Kings Refuse to be Ignored. Jezebel.com.

At Kogo Gallery, based in Tartu, Estonia is currently on view a group exhibition Drag Yourself Here by the Baltic Drag King Collective – a fluid community of drag performance artists from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The exhibition invites to experience, via drag, a glimpse into queer nightlife, gender empowerment and politics. Drag Yourself Here is curated by Mētra Saberova, Latvian queer feminist performance and moving-image artist. The show is part of Kogo Gallery’s this year’s programme Queer it Up which celebrates all that is positioned as fluid, different, unidentifiable, glitchy, marginal and uncomfortable. Kogo Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in Tartu, Estonia that focuses on the younger generation of artists. Kogo is committed to encouraging dialogue on important issues of today by running an extensive public programme alongside the exhibitions.