Mourning murmurations: Speculative fagulation and the ecological lament in drag down under

Abstract

Drag performers in Australia perform anthro-decentric laments for and beside endemic nonhuman species. They catalyse a public exteriorization of multi-species grief and rage in response to compounding losses in a situated, contested Anthropocene. Approaching queer performance beside intersections in new materialism and the environmental humanities, this article proposes drag as a device of speculative fabulation – of story-telling or fable-making in-the-present for generative, undefined outcomes in un-promised futures. Imbricating qualitative visual and textual analyses with autoethnography and a methodology informed by avian ecology, the article shares stories of ecological laments in the context of contemporary Australian performance, art and culture. It presents a brief review/revue of performances by artists based in Warrang (Sydney): Vallarie Van Gogh dances as a burning human-galah hybrid; Latai Taumoepeau goes to war as a monstrous coral reef; Phasmahammer (Justin Shoulder) bends mythology and matter imagining post-apocalyptic memories of birds.