slay, quing.

 

Berlin, 2024

Project for Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie 

As Talith transforms into Lilith, their mood changes. Lilith brings up complicated memories. As a drag-persona, Lilith was born in a chaotic phase of Talith’s life, which they start to relive with each stroke of make-up. As Miss. Verständniss (Miss Understanding in German) comes to life, she is shy and silly with a high-pitched girly voice. As Talith continues to transform, Kai Piranha emerges, slowly bringing out a deeper voice. He flirts with the camera, exuding a strange confidence only a gym-bro can have. Kai Prianha doesn’t ask how to pose, he already knows which angle helps the muscles look best on camera.

 

As part of Berlin’s Brazilian non-binary drag scene, Talith’s transformation into their different personas is a visceral experience. Slay, Quing is an analog photographic study on how these vulnerable moments of transformation between drag-personas reveal new questions about a performer’s relationship with their own body, all while in the privacy of their bedroom.  

 

Talith creates personas, practices their make up and builds their costumes for endless hours at a time at home before hitting the stage. Each persona has different opinions and experiences with gender and society’s treatment of it. As Talith observes their body evolving, in-part through hormone therapy, shedding and adopting new aspects, they are in a constant exchange with it: Which aspects does a gender-normative society praise, which does it frown upon, and which aspects say, ‚fuck-you‘.