/College of Arts and Sciences
Center for Changing Systems of Power

Spring 2026 Emerging Artist Residency | "Bienvenidos Al Museo: Queer Perspectives and Decolonial Aesthetics" - Gad Yola "Travesti del Perú"

 

Madrid-based Afro-Peruvian drag artist Gad Yola "Travesti del Perú" completed a 2-week residency (March 23 to April 3, 2026) turning Stony Brook University into a stage for queer, decolonial art. Her work during the residency was presented as part of the Humanities Institute Visiting Artist Series, organized by the Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies in collaboration with the College of Arts and Sciences' Center for Changing Systems of Power (CCSP) and the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Center (LACS).

Gad Yola's residency explored drag pedagogy, audiovisual storytelling, and decolonial artistic practice, engaging students and the broader campus community in reimagining Stony Brook University through queer, migrant, and Latin American perspectives, and in thinking about art as a form of education, resistance, and collective creation.

 

During her residency, Gad Yola developed the following activities:

 

Queer Perspectives & Decolonial Aesthetics - Weekend Video Workshop

In this workshop series, Gad Yola worked with students to produce an original video weaving together decolonial aesthetics and drag performance. The heart of the workshops was a collaborative video created with the help of Stony Brook students.

 

WATCH VIDEO - "Bienvenidos al Museo" 

 

 

BEHIND THE SCENES - "Bienvenidos al Museo"

 

 

 

Intersections of Drag in Europe, Latin America, and the US - Drag Show & Talk

This show and talk framed drag as a transnational form of resistance, celebrating this form of performance and its cross-cultural legacy. Gad Yola traced a genealogy of anti-racist queer icons and drag queens across the Atlantic. From the United States, she highlighted figures such as William Dorsey Swann, Crystal LaBeija, and Marsha P. Johnson.

She outlined how early 20th-century travesti and queer performers in Spain were repressed under the Franco dictatorship before a wave of countercultural experimentation came with La Movida Madrileña. She pointed to institutions like Madrid's Museo Reina Sofía (which now feature queer and trans artists and support feminist and anti-racist projects) as evidence that spaces are opening to these communities.

Gad Yola also described Peru's history through a decolonial lens, uncovering buried queer stories in Latin America, telling the story of 19th century cross-dresser Francisco Pro and drag philosopher Giuseppe Campuzano, creator of the Museo Travesti del Perú.

BIENVENIDOS AL MUSEO in the News