Pearl Lam (林明珠): This is Pearl Lam Podcast. Today I’m here, speaking with Le Fil. Le Fil’s a performer, I wouldn’t say drag, but a performer, a cultural disruptor, a fashion designer. From young, I have been obsessed with drag queens and drag shows, and I always thought that drag is a form of art. When contemporary art celebrates constructed identities, curated narrative, theatrical spectacle. We uphold performances, we trade in illusion. So why, when it comes to drag, we call it entertainment? Why one frame on the white wall and why the other plays under nightclub light? So today, I’m sitting here with La Fil and we will explore one simple question. If art is about, it’s built on transformation, illusion and power, has drag always understood this, your name, Le Fil, is this a creation by yourself or is this exaggerated of yourself?
Le Fil: Everything? No, for me, I basically, I started studying ceramics and sculpture, but I was always interested in music and pop culture and there were so many things I was interested in, but it didn’t seem to fit together. And I felt like I needed an artistic entity to be able to channel everything together so I could make all my work under one practise. And then that’s when I thought about, I need an artistic persona. Do you know how there’s, like, Lady Gaga. That’s not her real name, is it? So I was like, I needed that, but for my art self. And Le Fil basically came about because my real name’s Philip and people called me Phil and I used to spell, spell it with F anyway, like F I L. So Le Fil seemed a natural fit, but also because Le Fil to me means, like, the thread. Well, in French, it means the thread and I see it as the running thread that connects and sews together all these disciplines that I do, from fashion to performance to music to acting to ceramics. So I’ve woven all these things in for my own practise, which. So that seemed to make sense. And then La Fil as well, also looks a bit like the masculine appropriation of La Fille, which is the girl in French. So I really like that gender play. So, all these things were in my head, and I was like, I love this name, I’m going to use this name. Just start to develop, work, and see how that goes, and then here we are, like, 14 years later, and I’m still working under the name Le Fil. So, I would say that it’s very much, it’s not like a mask, it’s more like the, and not exaggerated either. I don’t think that’s the right word, but the most succinct version of my artistic viewpoint is where everything meets, and it’s like the summit of meeting points, everything coming together, all the disciplines, all the ideas, gender, everything.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Okay, so when you put in full drag, do you feel that is a transformation, or do you feel that you’re stepping inside something true about yourself?
Le Fil: I think drag, for me, the bigger question is, what is drag, right? So I think drag is, like, for some people, it’s the idea of cross dressing and becoming a woman. But because I’ve always been androgynous and people have already thought I was a woman, even without any makeup, I’ll just go to buy coffee, and they’re like, madam, what do you want? I’m like, I’m a bloke. For me, drag was never about becoming a woman, but it was about being the most exaggerated version of myself. So if it was about going on stage, I would push the femininity. I would push the music so that it became a heightened version. So if I did makeup, it’s the bigger version, it’s the bolder version. But I still wear makeup every day, it doesn’t mean that I’m dressing to become a woman. So, drag is like a superpower, I would say.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Okay, so let’s talk about femininity, since you’re talking about feminity. So, when you are playing femininity, is it you are feminine, you wonder, this is yourself or you play femininity is teaching us that actually femininity, you can act upon it.
Le Fil: I think for me, femininity exists in every person, whether or not they’re a very straight man or whether or not it’s a beautiful woman like yourself, like, there’s ranges of femininity that we all can inhabit. And I think when I’m on stage, then I access that the highest version of what I feel femininity is for me. So my idols are people like Grace Jones, Madonna, Gaga, like all that type of femininity, that strong, powerful sensuality with a voice. That’s what I love. So it wasn’t so much about emulating womanhood because of them. It was more their strengths and their desires, their visuals. That’s the things that appealed to me. So naturally, I would incorporate those references in my work and become a bit more feminine. Oh, grow my hair. But then people would class that as drag because some people would view it as, oh, it’s a boy pretending to be a woman. But in my head, it’s just me using artistic references.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Okay, since you are well read in art. So now a big question, when drag exaggerates, we call it camp and when art exaggerates, we call conceptual, why? Why?
Le Fil: It’s true, isn’t it? It’s funny when everything, it has labels per industry, I would say. And that’s the thing; everyone needs their terminology. And I think exaggerated femininity within drag has got an element of campness, but also it can be quiet, quite aggressive in a way. Because I think camp, we think of camp as quite fun and frivolous, but they can also be quite
Le Fil: Yeah, provocative, dangerous. People might challenge femininity in quite vulgar ways or use their body in loads of different ways to perform that. And so I think it’s just different styles of different work. But, yeah, I think no one really uses the word conceptual within drag because it seems like
Pearl Lam (林明珠): This is what I’m asking.
Le Fil: That’s what I mean!
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Can we call drag conceptual? Because it’s like conceptual artist.
Le Fil: We can!
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Right, right! Because I always challenge this whole thing about conceptual, and especially when we talk about, you know, anything that we don’t understand or something that we have to read deeper into that, we call it conceptual. But drag is in your face, right?
Le Fil: Yeah, yeah, completely!
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Right in your face. And there’s no subtlety at all. So we are not allowed to call it conceptual.
Le Fil: I think there’s also a thing where people think of drag as a very, yeah, superficial, surface level style.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): It’s not intellectual.
Le Fil: Exactly! So, I think the word conceptual scares people and they don’t want to associate that with drag because then it implies that, oh, they’re thinking too deeply. Like, this is meant to be fun, this is a nightclub event thing, we should just enjoy ourselves and have a drink and a cocktail to watch this. It can’t be conceptual, but I think it is. And a lot of times, especially with my work on Drag Race, I was really trying to push the concepts and push the storeys within every element of work that I was doing, that I was just going in to play a character. Every challenge I had, my art school background, I was thinking about references, I was thinking about turning things on its head. Why should it be that way? Shouldn’t it be this way? And every Runway, I would try and apply that logic to this.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Exactly! Because if Marcel Duchamp can say that urinal is art, why can’t drag be art?
Le Fil: Exactly! And, this body is art. And so, partly when I started my work, I did call my work pop sculpture, because, as Le Fil, I was like, thinking, I enjoy making ceramics. But what I see in the wider world is things like when music brings people together, that in itself is a sculpture. It’s of interaction, it’s of performance, it’s people coming together with a shared passion. And that to me was like an artwork. So I thought that’s like a material to use, like pop culture. So pop sculpture is just using pop culture as a material. And that’s what I think of myself like, either as a pop sculptor, but also as a pop sculpture. So I’m working on myself as a tool at the same time and try and place myself into this world of pop culture. And that’s what I did over the last 10 years.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): So, let’s speak about construct visibility. Now, drag never pretends to be natural, so you construct visibility by exaggerating your silhouette, your costume, your performances. Do you think that. That visibility is a part of power?
Yeah, I think any drag is political already, and I think anything that is political addresses power. And it’s about either regaining power over expression, identity. And drag does that so much. And I think that’s what maybe people are threatened by, is this idea of, if a man is trying to dress as a woman, what does that mean about society? Like, we see that everywhere right now. And I think that’s not even like a massive issue. Whereas in contemporary culture now, people are trying to make it into an issue because they’re scared by it. And it’s just easier to call drag queens, as…
Pearl Lam (林明珠): I love Drag Queens!
Le Fil: Drag queens, criminals. They’re good. I’m glad.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): I love drag queens.
Le Fil: Yeah. The exaggeration of, I think all their forms as drag queens is just a really interesting way to present performance or make us question what our Daily lives are like drag. I would say everybody is in drag to a point, right? You’re a builder, who is wearing grey jogging bottoms, going to Tesco’s is just as much of a drag king as I am on stage. Because as soon as you choose a very gendered or stereotyped outfit, I think that is drag already.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Because we always like labels, we always like to put things in a bucket.
Le Fil: Yeah!
Pearl Lam (林明珠): So. Okay, so let’s speak about another issue I think is very interesting because I think every day everyone is constructing their own identity online, socially, professionally. So is drag the most transparent form of self expression?
Le Fil: I would say so, yeah!
Le Fil: Because I think when you do drag…
Pearl Lam (林明珠): I should, I fixed you to give me that answer.
Le Fil: Of course. Well, I think when you do drag, you automatically question what your authentic self is anyway. Because either you’re presenting your idea of yourself as a creation, like through makeup or wigs, or, or even as myself. Like the idea of drag is about amplifying what I feel I am like. So if I have my long hair, if I’m just wearing red, I’ve got some eyeliner and that’s my version of who I am. So I think any version that you’re presenting out there is already constructed and that is the essence of drag. Like you are constructing your identity to present to the world. So, if we do that on a daily basis through our socials, through getting dressed to go to Tesco or anything,.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): I mean, I’m not even talking about you, I’m talking about everyday people because everyday people, they actually do construct their own identities online. How many online people you meet is the true self, right? Socially, we put on certain phase, we go and we go and greet people, we, I’m saying that everyone, we are doing the same thing and everyone, we’re doing the same thing in a way that we are not even aware of it because we construct our own different identity professionally. You go for an interview immediately, you construct a different image when you go for interviews, professionally. So I’m talking about everyone in, in our society.
Le Fil: Yeah, completely. Like when we do it, we’ve labelled it, so people call it as such.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yeah! So, I thought this is the most honest form as well. It’s not even. And even transparent. And, and I somehow always wonder that why drag is so powerful, I mean has so much power, is because they do not disguise, they actually review themselves in a very different way because of that, it really challenges us to think about our society. Because our society, we believe about natural in our society, but our natural society actually, is engineered. Is really, you know, we created it.
Le Fil: Yeah. What is natural?
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yeah.
Le Fil: What is natural and what is our, because our form or ideas of natural is being what shaped around.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Exactly, exactly!
Le Fil: We see in the media.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): But I think that challenge just to, you know, is actually reminding us that our society is a little bit. How would I say. And our society is actually. We also create our own everything. What we invert a common natural.
Le Fil: Yeah, completely. What is natural and authentic to us? I’m not going to say normal person, but to an everyday person who isn’t in drag. But their idea of authenticity has also been built by the same references that we as drag performers have. So when you see all the Kardashians influencing girls to have like big lashes or big silhouettes that aren’t their natural silhouettes, that is drag. But people don’t know it.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Absolutely. Let’s talk about you being a fashion designer. So a lot of the things that costumes that made in drag, you actually inspired a lot of fashion houses. And I just read about it, I just did a research about it and of course, you know, fashion is creating a constructing fantasy for and for luxury and drag is constructing fantasy for self expression. But you. I mean, I think the both luxury fashion houses and drag share the same fantasy. It’s just that you guys made it more bold. What’s your comment about this?
Le Fil: I think fashion and drag definitely share a relationship together. Drag is more introspective, I guess, in the sense that it’s the individual person who is wearing that costume, making that costume to express
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Your self-expression.
Le Fil: Exactly! It’s something about myself or an idea or a concept that I’ve had. Whereas I guess for couture the designers are using that to give to their clients. So the people who are buying it is going to be part of their storey and it’s more of a way to sort of distribute their ideas to other people.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): ecause I see, I see a couturier is a quieter form of the same fantasy that share with the drag. But the drag made it bolder.
Le Fil: Yeah, the root source of it is. Yeah.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): The root desire to imagine is the fantasy and all that. But then they would tick inspired by the drag and make it in a very quiet and subtle form. That’s nothing about drag.
Le Fil: Yeah, that’s true.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): You definitely see, drag loves loud.
Le Fil: Yeah, it’s loud, it’s bold. It’s there to make a statement. It’s an artistic statement. Drag is costume wise.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): How many drag consider yourself as artist?
Le Fil: I would say every single as performer.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Is it really?
Le Fil: Yeah, I would say. But the definition of what is art as well, is like, then what type of art? Like, that’s mainly the question for drag artists, is like, are we the pub type, or are we, like, more conceptual type? But even the pub drag artist is still a type of cultural experience that I would say is an artwork. Like, if you took that out and placed that into a white box context, you can sort of see it for what it is, the way that it’s interacting with an audience. It’s visual elements, it’s ideas on gender and social.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yeah, but gender, you know, since you mentioned gender and you mentioned, for minutes, femininity just now. So why drag has to be exaggerating that. That femininity to attract, to. To seduce audience? Is that, is that how you have to seduce the audience, byexaggerating this?
Le Fil: I think. Well, Dragon itself is about sort of the exaggeration of a stereotype to do with, which is why it’s subversive because it’s subverting gendered stereotypes with, like, womanhood. But drag isn’t necessarily just about femininity. It’s also about masculinity as well. Like, it’s a lot of. I mean, there’s drag queens, there’s drag kings, there’s drag in betweens.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): So really, what is Drag in between?
Le Fil: Drag in between, drag in betweens. Sort of people like me, but also more who are, let’s say, dressing up to be monsters or dressing up to be, like, actual sculptural things rather than playing into ideas of femininity or masculinity. So, I mean, there’s lots of different shows as well, that have, like, I would say, drag things like people say, because they do end up looking like characters, superheroes, or, like, the monsters from your nightmares. But that is also form of drag because it’s so silly. It’s over the top, it’s crazy. And it comments on the context that is formed within, whether it’s film references or theories and storeys. So that, to me, then shows that drag is in itself a type of questioning and a critique of culture. So, it exists more than just masculinity or femininity.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Okay, so today, drag has become mainstream. Right. And do you think that you have drag now can assert more influences, or do you think that is losing its teeth?
Le Fil: I think there’s a certain aspect of drag that has become mainstream. So with RuPaul’s Drag Race, that is the biggest franchise now, and which is amazing because, I mean, grow with my Friends and relatives in Hong Kong, for example, when they were saying, oh, drag never seemed to be a thing until RuPaul Drag Race came out. And then, like. And then. So that type of visibility across the world is amazing because it gives a platform for LGBTQ+ communities. However, it still hasn’t reached its potential of what drag can exist, like, within a cultural form, because there are things like drag kings and there’s so many different explorations of identity that is still yet to be seen in the mainstream. It’s all still underground, and I don’t know if it can ever get into the mainstream unless there’s, like, other platforms that help that. So even for my. As my example, as a queer artist who was making art and music, I was like, what type of platform can I get into the mainstream? Is it X Factor? Probably not, because Simon Cowell’s just gonna, like, say that I’m not feeling like a boy band.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): X Factor, com’on!
Le Fil: Exactly. So then I was like, okay, Drag Race is the most, like, succinct platform, I guess, because it’s. It’s queer. It also shows, like, you can show different talents. And that was for what I view it as the only window or portal to be able to push my ideas and work through a mainstream lens. And until there’s those windows that are placed onto more subcultures, then it’s harder for that to break through. So luckily now, Drag Race is almost like a bit of a Trojan horse, like, getting drag queens through first and then anyone else that can come through with them.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): But hold on, then. Then do you think that the drag race has. Has domesticated the drag queens
Le Fil: In a way, yeah, yeah! I mean, we see, like, drag queens on cooking shows now, I think. But historically, we have had drag queens present things like blankety blank game shows, like, on the BBC for decades before, and. But they’ve only been maybe one or two drag queens within.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): There was one drag queen queen in Australia, but he’s not a drag queen. He’s a man who. Barry. Whatever.
Le Fil: Oh, Dame Edna.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yeah. Dame Edna
Le Fil: Yeah. I mean, I remember that as a child.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): I remember Dame Edna, but. But he’s not really a drag queen, drag queen as such.
Le Fil: Well, I was just pretty much a drag queen. He’s got sparkly clothes.
Pearl Lam (林明珠):
Sparkly clothes. Yeah. But she doesn’. She doesn’t sing and do all the things that the RuPaul drag showed us. Well, I guess they don’t swing the hip.
Le Fil: Well, I guess not everybody dances and sings, but you can do a lot of different things.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): But it’s not Glamorous. Like you girls. You girls are very glamorous, my dear.
Le Fil: Yes, completely. Drag Race definitely has an aesthetic of having very glamorous queens. And I think that is.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): And the makeup.
Le Fil: And the makeup, yeah.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): You know, Dame Edna only had the glasses, but you guys have the makeup, your hairdo!
Le Fil: but that’s drag.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Your silhouette. But that era, they don’t have that.
Le Fil: Well, no, we still have it in pubs. Like, if you go to pubs and clubs up and down the country, there will be drag queens who literally just throw on a pair of glasses so they don’t have to do their makeup. So there isn’t one idea of drag. I think that’s the main thing, which I have learned as well, is that anybody has the potential to be drag. It’s just on a sliding scale of whether not at 0 or 100 when you’re on Drag Race. So I think every person, there is an idea, whether or not you’re an everyday person in an office, like, you say, putting on a suit like that is at this end, because it’s not knowing that you’re even a drag person. But then you sort of go through all the different elements. There’s also drag queens that I would say, do you know, there’s queens that would say, if I don’t put on a pair of heels, then I’m not a drag queen. But then I say, but then, like, there’s women that would wear flat trainers and flat boots. Would you say that they’re not a woman? So I think. I think there’s different ways of exaggerating what femininity is, and I think there’s different ways of exploring that as well. Whether or not it’s a heel or a flat shoe, there’s always colour and depth and shade as there is any other.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Before I move to the next topic. I think my producer love listening to your drag race, the RuPaul Drag Race. Right?
Le Fil: Good, thank you.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Tell us more about your experience there and what you think about. I mean, that Drag Race, of course, it has become international and it has been. I mean, it’s put drag queens in mainstream. Right. So, do you think that will work in Asia?
Le Fil: Yeah, I think Asia.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Really? In China? Come on.
Le Fil: So, what I have loved about being on Drag Race is the amount of Asian people who have reached out to me in my sliding into my DMs, like from across the world and especially.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Really?
Le Fil: Wow. Yeah. And in email, just to say how it’s nice to see somebody represent their values, but also be in a format like this and that to me was such a big thing that I wanted to achieve going into the show, because I never had that role model growing up. I think when I grew up, there was maybe a Chinese chef on TV and there was a Chinese violinist. That was it. That was everything that I saw when I was in England. But now we have queer Asian representation, which is amazing. So for me, going into the show is like. That’s an important part. I want to be able to respect myself, heritage, my culture, my ideas about gender, all in the outfits that I’m constructing, like, artwork. So, everything tells the storey.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): But you did a lot of costumes, which is Chinese costumes inspired, especially opera costume inspired. When I look at some of the images, just how do you get that? You know, are you pushing. Pushing something about who you are? You’re Chinese, so you’re pushing that as well?
Le Fil: Completely. Like, I call myself the androgynous Asian sensation. The as.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Sensation.
Le Fil: Yeah, sensation. Because I did. I do want to sort of tell people about representation, because if we don’t have representation, then we’re not visible and then we’re not having everybody in the. In our country or the world be represented. And I think it’s really important, especially on a show like that where there’s like 12 white people that like that, when you get an Asian one, that they show they have a point of view, they have a voice, they’re seen as an equal and seen as valid. Because I think there’s a lot of prejudice still towards Asian community.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Really?
Le Fil: Yeah. I think within arts, especially with casting films or, like, programmes, there’s not the storeys for them. There’s not enough.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Oh, there’s no stories. Because in England, in uk, if you go back to Asia, it will be focused. But look at it in Hollywood now. Most of the movies, they have diversity.
Le Fil: I wish there was more Asian people, though, in, like, Hollywood movies. I still. I still want more because there is a massive demographic of us living in. In England, and I think I’ve grown up here my entire life and. And I still don’t feel like I’ve.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Have you seen other British Chinese drag queens?
Le Fil: Yes, yes. Thankfully, there’s. But I think within the seven seasons that they’re in now, that is still maybe, like, five of us. Out of how many? 12. 12, Like, loads of drag queens, Only a handful of us. And for me, going on that show, I just really wanted to be able to showcase us to the best. And all my work that I did was really, like. I viewed it as like sculpture. So all my Runway presentations, I was like, Everything’s got a concept in the storey and a material, a fabric to tell the storey. So how do I do it? And then coming out of the show to use socials, to use my live tours, my performances, to expand on that world so that it becomes a bit bigger and a bit more pop sculpture.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Wonderful. When you walk, when you walk into a room in full drag, do you control the gaze or do you dare? Do you dare the gaze?
Le Fil: Are we talking about gazes in homosexual or the artist gaze?
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Gaze. Gaze, Gaze. Start again, start again.
Le Fil: No, that’s good. I like both, of course, the artist gaze. No, I do want to control the homosexual gaze as well as the artist gaze. But, no, I think that. Yeah, I think when you’re in full outfit, you definitely draw attention.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Because you want the attention, right?
Le Fil: Yeah, well, I think.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): But how do you control it? Or do you look back at a person and. Because they gaze at you and then you wink at them.
Le Fil: That is something that I’ve learned, actually. Just the cheeky eyeglass.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yeah, you do your cheeky, wicked, seductive wink.
Le Fil: It definitely works as well. No, when you go into a room, obviously when you’re in a full outfit, you want people to see it and it’s like, does art exist if there’s no viewer? Like, you can make the work in your room, but you can.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): No, because you have become an art object.
Le Fil: Exactly. So I think that is the purpose is to sort of be there for the viewer, whether or not it’s to.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Can you control the gaze?
Le Fil: I don’t think you can. I think you can direct it and develop.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): You can direct it. That’s a control, really.
Le Fil: Yeah, I guess so. But you can’t say that someone’s gonna understand what I’m presenting, like, wholly and 100%. So I think I can’t direct it in that sense, but I can give them the visual stimulus that helps them.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Okay. So when you’re in a stage, when you’re performing, okay, you have all the audience, they drain, they make horrible noise. How do you control that?
Le Fil: I go sit on them.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Do you ask them to shut up?
Le Fil: Oh, sometimes, yeah. Sometimes ask them to shut up. It depends on the context. So I’ve done things from small bars where people have spoken, and then I will have to give them a cheeky look and then. Or like, call them out, or if it’s a live arena tour, then it really doesn’t matter anyway because it’s massive.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): It’s very annoying. In a small venue and you want them to look at you and they Start drinking, laughing, making so much noise. Do they actually turn around and say that? Please shut up.
Le Fil: I have done it before.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Focus on me.
Le Fil: But I would never do it in a way which is antagonising. I try and do it in a way which is entertaining.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): So, of course!
Le Fil: If there’s like a bunch of girls who are like, on their night out and it’s like, babes, you’ve had one too many bottles of Lamborghini, haven’t you? And then you go over and you just talk to them and then hopefully that satisfied their idea of an interaction and then they can pipe down and then you carry on with the show. I think there’s many ways, and I think that is the skill of being a host or a performer is to be able to manage a crowd in that intimate sense. But I think you could do quite. Even when there’s. I’ve done open mic nights where, like, where you sing and people would talk and I think. Or when you’ve gone to a corporate event and I host a. And perform and people are talking, there’s always going to be something which isn’t right in the room and it’s. And I can do as much as I can, like to sort of hold their attention with my work, but.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): So now you’re behaving like an entertainer, not an artist. So tell me, do you feel like you are an entertainer, entertainer or artist? Do you truly believe that drag is a form of art?
Le Fil: I love this question. I think drag is a form of art and I think it splits into those different skills of being entertaining or being thought provoking or being provocative. And I think there’s different ways. So, if I was going to a corporate gig, I can’t do my most conceptual thing, which is going to scare them and they’re not going to be able to eat their dinner.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Most conceptual thing.
Le Fil: Oh well!
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Is it dangerous?
Le Fil: Well, I think it’s provocative and I think it involves more skin.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): It’s stabilising.
Le Fil: It would do.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yeah!
Le Fil: I think it would put them off their dinner. And if you want to see that, go like, email me for a booking. But, but I think so, yeah. It’s about knowing the audience and the context that it sits at. So I think if I was doing my more conceptual pieces, that is for a specific audience and it’d be like, if you’re doing a fashion show, that your fashion show would be the most conceptual part. And then you go do like you present models at the selling show afterwards. That would be the type of idea that you can split your work into different platforms. So sometimes my work is entertaining, sometimes it’s provocative, sometimes it’s commercial, sometimes it’s the most like, truest essence. But I think that’s just something that I’ve had to learn personally as an artist, is to be able to exist on different platforms, to be able to carry on making work.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Conceptual art, we have vortex drag comes in arrive performance without it. So this immediate enticing, getting audience. Do you think that being drag is more powerful than conceptual art?
Le Fil: I think it maybe has. It has a different skill to power, I guess, like, yeah, drag. You’re coming in and you’re saying, watch this, this is art. Focus your attention. If you’re going into a gallery, it’s different, I guess, because.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Oh, galleries, you have your performance artists, right?
Le Fil: Yeah! And I think people, when audience members enter a building, it already makes their frame of mind change in terms of how they’re going to view something. So as soon as they go into a white cube, they’re already approaching it with a level of, how am I going to analyse this? How am I going to appreciate this? Whereas if they enter a dark room with neon lights, they’re thinking, oh, I can let myself free. I don’t have to think about, I can have a drink. This is going to be fun. The way that people go into different rooms already affects how people view them.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): One of the discussions that I have is who is going to define what is art? Okay, if we are going to say that, you know, we define art is on the premises that you perform, then isn’t that it’s not about art itself, it’s about the venue. So, isn’t this defeating what we call art?
Le Fil: I know, I think that is. That is a really interesting topic to discuss because, yeah, it does defeat art in the sense that each venue then has its context supported.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Because our mood change. When you go to a museum, a gallery, you see you. You expect something which is. Which is, you know, you don’t really feel that it’s hard, but it’s because it’s performance. That must be art. And then you go to a nightclub. Oh, that’s entertainer.
Le Fil: Yeah. Which is why, like, so back even when like Leigh Bowery in the 80s and 90s was placed into a gallery. And I think that basically encapsulates everything that’s been happening in the bar. And they’ve just tried to put it into that gallery context to bring it to a new audience. And I think that in itself, that idea of curation can give it legitimacy or tell People that it’s art. But when you’re seeing it at nightclub, that’s already art. It’s just you pulled it out to put it into a gallery. And I think that is maybe what people need to think about. It’s like Tracey Emin’s bed.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yes, yes.
Le Fil: It’s like that is already in the bedroom, but that was already art before we put it into the gallery.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Because every time when I saw Tracy Emin’s bed, I still cannot think that and terms that persuade myself this is art.
Le Fil: But then if a urinal is art already, that’s the thing we go back.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yeah. Because then when you look at Marcel Duchamp, this is if urinal can, why can’t Tracey Emin?
Le Fil: Yeah, exactly.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): This is conceptual. Right. One intimate question that I want to ask is, you know, we are Chinese and your parents from Hong Kong. I’m from Hong Kong. So how do they take it? Not that you are gay, but you are drag queen. So how do. I mean, how did your parents take that?
Le Fil: My parents are very supportive if I’m successful. So they just want me to do well. And at first they didn’t want me to do performing, they didn’t want me to do art. They wanted me to go into law or finance, all that type of stuff. I mean, we’re from a working class family and we’re from a very small town in Yorkshire. So I can understand that drive to be able to look after myself and. And to go into those subjects. But I did do that really well at school. I got my A stars, I got my grade A’s in all the subjects. So it was more that once I did that I was wanting to do something that I could express myself in. And when I told my parents wanted to do performing, they were like, well, as long as you do it well and as long as you are successful in it.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): You can be independent.
Le Fil: Yeah, then you can be independent. And over the time, and as soon as it got into the television especially, my dad is really proud. I mean, he’s in his 80s, so he’s seen a lot of things in the media as people.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Because parents, the one thing about parents is they don’t know how to explain to their friends, you know, if you have a drag queen son, especially from a Chinese parents, they would say, how am I going to talk? Tell my friends, my relatives.
Le Fil: He’s basically because he’s got so many people around him that he will introduce me as. This is my son. He does art. Like, he just tells him straight away that anything creative that looks different. That’s because he does art, which I kind of love and is kind of true. And that is the reason why.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): So, when you see your parents, how do you dress? You dress like this.
Le Fil: Yeah, like, I will. I.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Really?
Le Fil: Yeah, I have my long hair. I’ll wear colour. And that’s the thing, like.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): And his friends wouldn’t be, you know.
Le Fil: No, the friends are actually really supportive. Or maybe they’re just scared and they don’t know what to say to me. But my.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): If you’re in Yorkshire, in a little village and, and. And they’re not shocked.
Le Fil: Well, people look and people stare. But I let them because I feel like they need art in their lives. Right. So who am I to deny them of a walking work?
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Bravo! I clap and I celebrate you.
Le Fil: Thank you.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Wow. And your mother? How about your mother?
Le Fil: My mother loves it. She was always a creative person. So she. I think whenever she sees photos or videos of me performing, like, it’s always really nice. And especially because my sisters also help me with my costumes or with my shows that. But it’s a nice family thing, so we get to do it all together and it’s. Yeah, it brings us together.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): And how do you research all your costumes?
Le Fil: A lot of research. A lot of. A lot of things which I’ll either see on social media or in books. And I mean, I’m an avid. I feel like I’m a student all the time, is that I’m always looking at things. I’m looking at sculptures in here. For anyone who’s just listening to the podcast, it’s basically a sculpture of a man with an erection behind my head, just so you know. But, yeah, I look at everything and I’m feeding off everything and I’m always drawing and so that’s how I come up with the designs. And my sister also is a fashion technician, so we work together in terms of solving problems. She’s like, you design, tell me the challenge and I’ll try and see what I can do to make it work.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): So your parents are very open minded.
Le Fil: Yeah, yeah, they are.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Conceptual art or conceptual eyeliner. Museum gala or underground club. High fashion or high drama. Illusion or revelation. Power suit or power lashes. Drag unsettled people because it removes the disguise. It exposes what polite society wants to frame delicately, that identity is constructed, power is choreographed and beauty is strategically engineered. The hard world speaks solemnly about narrative, persona and spectacle. And actually the drag is also doing the same. The only difference is they are not subtle. They don’t pretend there is any subtlety so perhaps it is the discomfort is not about sequenced and stage light. And so perhaps if art is built on transformation and illusion, has art been dragged all along? Thank you.
Le Fil: Thank you. Thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): It’s been a great pleasure.
