The Phil Lind Initiative: Sasha Velour

Critically acclaimed gender-fluid drag queen, visual artist, speaker and author Sasha Velour has been a force in the international drag scene long before her scene-stealing, rose-petal-filled win on season nine of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Her Phil Lind Initiative talk titled The Big Reveal: Why Drag Matters, delves into queer history and the importance of drag as an expression of oneself, as a revolutionary act of visibility for queer culture, and as a politically-charged art form that delights and disrupts.

The 2024 Phil Lind Initiative series Pop Politics is a novel and nuanced exploration of how pop culture has influenced and shaped how we understand, experience, and practice politics in the United States. This dynamic series will feature talks with artists who have used their craft to take a political stance. Voicing the experience of refugees and the LGBTQ2+ community, demanding climate justice, questioning income inequality and uplifting marginalized communities, these speakers have tackled many of the defining debates of American political life and used their creative outputs as acts of connection, of resistance, and of survival. Presented by the UBC School of Public Policy and Global Affairs in partnership with the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts. Read more at https://lindinitiative.ubc.ca/