Magnus Hastings - Rainbow Revolution

IN JANUARY 2018, RIDING HIGH ON THE SUCCESS OF MY FIRST BOOK WHY DRAG?, I WAS ALREADY EXCITED ABOUT MY NEXT PROJECT.

I knew I wanted to do more with drag, but I was also keen to embrace the entire queer spectrum. Attitudes to gender and sexual identity were changing rapidly, both in the queer community and beyondbut things were complicated. On one hand, acceptance and visibility were clearly on the rise; on the other, the world was becoming a very dangerous place for minorities. Governments in all corners of the globe were increasingly conservative and many of our hard-won rights were being eroded. I wanted to create a project that was highly visible and unapologetically queer, and one that shouted with pride, defiance, humor, and joy because, after all, if we are good at anything it is laughing in the face of adversity.

Because I wanted to make as much noise as possible, social media was going to be key. I thought about what the best visual structure might be for those platforms, the perfect frame for a super-instagrammable image that would work in large format too. Of course, it was the square. Which led me to a box, a white box, a 3-D blank canvas within which people could express themselves in any way they wished.

Everyone would have their moment.

Within three days, I had built a box in my parking garage and enlisted Alaska Thunderfuck and The Kiss Boyz to be my test subjects. Alaska nailed up some blue fabric, threw some shapes, and I knew straight awayyup, thats gonna work. There was something egalitarian about the white box that I really liked. It presented each participant with exactly the same starting point and provided a context for their self-expression that was completely open with limitless possibilities. I also discovered that the box had a kind of magical quality: The white canvas subtly picks up the colors of the people and objects placed within it, appearing to absorb and reflect their essence.

Alaska Thunderfuck : Artist

We would produce mini theatrical pieces that were as much about the experience itself as the final image, with intentionally lo-fi special effects where you see the staples and the string and the fun. This was a no re-touch projectthe photographs should be full of the raw energy generated by things happening in real time. I encouraged people to write on the walls, pin things up, and transform their space however they chose. If anyone needed a guiding hand, I was there to work with themand I might make the odd cheat like duplicating an image of a person in their boxbut ultimately this was their time to shine, to speak, and to be heard.

For the next three months, I worked under the radar, shooting around 130 people, all sworn to secrecy and not allowed to see their finished image until the great online unveiling on May 4th, 2018, at 12 p.m. At that moment, every image dropped and, as if from nowhere, #GAYFACE was born. As planned, we went viral immediately, with the hashtag trending on Twitter to the extent that a movie studio publicist told me that they routinely spent $100,000s on campaigns that were unable to achieve this kind of attention.

That same evening I had a sell-out pop-up gallery exhibit showcasing all the images, which I had printed onto canvas boxesa box on a box. While they work fantastically well as solo pieces, I had always intended the photographs be shown in groups in order to express our solidarity, diversity, and power in numbers.