A journey through drag mothering by Panagiotis Pagiotakopoulos

In 2013, Panagiotis Pagiotakopoulos, a Greek art student in Amsterdam, created the genderless drag character Taka Taka. Club Church, a sex-positive nightclub, opened Pagiotakoupolos’ eyes to the nurturing power of drag mothering. Over the past decade, Taka Taka has become the mother of many drag children. In this daily practice of mothering, Taka Taka has developed a method in which queer people feel free to construct new personas, defiant to all forms of gender normativity. Within the infrastructure of a drag house, Taka Taka guards its nurturing conditions:  

“I see drag houses as new, constructed families built on collaboration and knowledge sharing: families parallel to our 'bloodline families,' rather than opposed to them.”  

For example, his birth mother contributes to his practice in her own way. Today, Taka Taka is engaged in deepening and sharing knowledge about drag mothering with a wide audience. This encounter with Taka Taka is conceived as an event for anyone curious about drag mothering and the unique way Taka Taka links this practice to pedagogy and activism. In addition, Lady Bag, one of Taka Taka's drag children, will perform a participatory ‘bag dragging act’.  

• Panagiotis Pagiotakopoulos (aka Taka Taka) was trained as a professional makeup artist. He studied Fine Arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, followed by the MA ArtEZ program at the Netherlands Art Institute. Taka Taka identifies as a professional dragtivist and art educator producing performances as director of the House of Hopelezz at Club Church, Amsterdam. Taka Taka is a sister to others, a mother of the drag king House of Løstbois and proud daughter of Jennifer Hopelezz. Taka Taka works annually with institutions and collectives such as AIDS Fonds, Global Aids Village, Drag Olympic Games, Begging Babes, and Superball the Battle of European Drag Houses. In 2017, he began sharing his knowledge and methodologies of gender artistic practices in Dutch art schools.