Anyone who has seen a Ginava show likely remembers Bulimia.
The lavender-hued monster stumbles and jigs its way across the stage holding a trash can, from which it digs out, eats, and vomits back up everything from bananas to a pair of off-coloured tighty-whiteys.
It's one of the many creatures handmade and brought to the stage by Perth drag artist Ginava, whose real name is Blake Anderson, through their company Gender Mess Productions.
By name and by nature, the company's performances not only "mess" with perceptions about gender, but face the "monsters" created by trauma and personal experience head on — by bringing them to life.
"Imagine certain imaginary creatures and monsters that you would find under your bed that haunt your dreams," Ginava said.
"I like to use those monsters in haunting the hetero-normative ideas of what people perceive to be gender.
"How society has defined gender over past centuries has constantly changed. How is it that we now say that blue is for boys, pinks is for girls, that women can wear dresses and men cannot?" they said.
"But if we look back in history, in most cases it was actually the opposite."
Commentary through costume
They said the character Bulimia was crafted to address the trauma associated with eating disorders in a sensitive way.
"It's still got some kind of commentary, or lesson to be learnt from it, or just something to start a conversation.
"Instead of making it so gruesome and triggering, why not have something very friendly to bring it up?"
Blue dinosaurs that don't have eyes — until they do — doing hip-hop choreography, and masked goddesses voguing in glittering, floor-length fringe gowns are among the other creations that appeared in Gender Mess Productions' most recent show, Ginava's Messy Friends, at the Perth Fringe World Festival.
The designs are hand-made and "MacGyvered" from such diverse materials as felt, lamp shades, windscreen sun shields and other products collected from hardware and discount stores.
Handmade and improvised
There are dresses made from real X-ray images and brain scans — dug out of a box of photos from family injuries — and others are woven together using pipe cleaners.
The materials might be humble, but the finished product has earned Ginava and her supporting artists critical praise and accolades. One of Ginava's costumes has been worn by Irish singer-songwriter, Roisin Murphy.
Most recently, Ginava's Messy Friends won Fringe World's Martin Sims Award, "presented to the best new West Australian work that is destined to succeed on the world stage".
They plan to use the $10,000 prize money to take the show to Edinburgh.
But Ginava said earning recognition for their work as a drag artist had had its challenges because their costumes and creatures sometimes strayed from what was seen to be "drag".
"Say with the classics of To Wong Foo, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, RuPaul's Drag Race … it is a part of what drag is about, but it's not the whole story."
'It's very liberating not playing by the rules'
Ginava points to New York City's Club Kids of the 90s and the photographs of Damien Frost as examples of drag that go beyond glamour and further into the realm of alternative art and design.
Ginava said staying true to their vision was important to them, even if the work was a departure from what audiences were familiar with.
With more creatures in Ginava's collection that are yet to see the light of day, there is likely to be more of the unconventional to come.
"It's very liberating to not play by the rules," they said.
