Angela Christofilou is an actress, voice-over artist, singer and self-taught photographer. She first started experimenting with street photography in the US and then in London, she began documenting protest movements including the Women’s Marches, the Climate Change and LGBTQ+ actions. More recently, she has been working on photo-stories around themes of sexual and gender identity and violence against women.
In this photo series, Angela documents her friend Yas Necati at their house transitioning into their drag king act Tarkan. Yas Necati is a queer and trans activist and writer, living in London. Their work explores drag culture and identity. More information on the series below:
Drag isn’t just about queens, it’s about kings too and exploring masculine identities.
It’s about expressing different aspects of gender and discovering different ways of being and seeing. It’s about anything we want to be.
‘Tarkan: Becoming a King’
“I feel like drag for me is just an extended way of me exploring my own ideas of gender and my personal gender identity. Obviously being a gender and performing a gender are two very different things – but in performing manhood and masculinity it’s allowed me to be more open and accepting of my femininity too – something that I used to shy away from in a quest to be “butch”. I feel like that experimentation has been really freeing for me, and contributed to me recognising that I’m non-binary – that I’ve never really sat at one end of the spectrum or the other. My drag king act is Tarkan, who is a Turkish popstar, most famously the singer of “kiss kiss”. Being a Turkish person born in the UK, it’s nice for me to explore Turkish culture through queerness and gender. My act is a melting pot of so many different parts of my identity and I feel lucky to be able to get on stage and perform it” Yas Necati
© Angela Christofilou | Artist Biography, Artworks & Gallery | https://www.angelachristofilouphoto.com/
