On International Drag Day, I am excited to announce the launch of the MUSEUM DRAG NETWORK! Museum Drag Network aims to bring together drag artists, museum and heritage sector workers and researchers, to...
Research and archive the ways drag practice has helped explore LGBTQ heritage in museums and heritage sites from different perspectives.
Connect drag artists with museums and heritage sites that correspond to their practice and interests.
Advocate for best practice in hiring, paying and caring for drag artists working with museums, with helpful tips and resources.
Why?
“Because it’s iconic” apparently isn’t a valid enough reason, so allow me to elaborate further. I’m Claire, an art historian, curator and educator who has been working across different areas of the museum sector for almost a decade(!), from exhibitions and collections to programming and community engagement. I started doing drag in 2018 with my drag king persona Eugène Delacroissant, the sector’s infamous self-proclaimed director of all museums and heritage sites, enthusiastically mansplaining about queer and feminist history.
My boisterous museumsplainer is one amongst many other drag artists in the UK and beyond who have made museums and heritage sites more accessible, fun and irreverent with their drag practice and perspectives - as performers, yes, but also as consultants, exhibiting artists and researchers!
Museum drag is about seeing ourselves in the spaces we seek to queer, but it’s also merging research, performance and lived experience to create something experimental, bold and unique. I want to explore exactly what that something is - and document brilliant projects that deserve to be archived. I also started increasingly talking both to drag artists keen to diversify what they were doing by working with museums - and talking to museum colleagues asking me for drag performer recs.
So behold - an oddball little network merging archiving, collaboration and drag artist-museum matchmaking.
Where are we?
For now Museum Drag Network’s news and resources will take the form of a Substack (you’re on it!), with a monthly newsletter that will assemble recent news on museum drag projects/events, job opportunities and open calls for drag artists related to the museums and heritage sector, and little features.
The hope is to, with more funding and capacity with more people being involved, have a website that can compile more long-form pieces of writing and museum drag project documentation. The next step will be organising member events to network, socialise and match up drag artists with museums!
How do I join the network as a member?
Get in touch at museumdragnetwork@gmail.com and I will send you a link to a form to fill in with more information, find out why you are interested in joining and how you’d like to contribute or your ideas in general (this could be writing a post for the Substack, or lending a hand in organising a future event!). For capacity purposes I am keeping this network focused on:
Drag artists who have worked with museums or are interested in doing so
Museum and heritage sector workers (both employees and freelancers) who have worked with drag artists or are interested in doing so
Researchers who have interesting things to contribute about museum drag.
By joining you pledge to be part of a network that has a zero-tolerance policy in terms of racism, transphobia, homophobia, ableism and classism.
So come drag the museum! There will be cake (and croissants).
Love,
Claire Mead aka Eugène Delacroissant
