Spring Artist Series with Juno Birch

You may have seen Juno Birch on Netflix’s Ru Paul’s ‘Drag Race’ eating lobster thermidor while judging contestants dressed in alien housewife drag. Or you may be one of her legions of YouTube fans who like to watch the bizarre world she has created using, ‘The Sims’ PlayStation game. One such video shows Brenda McDonald, an avatar in a tight pink mini skirt and pink platform shoes, interacting with her husband, Ronald McDonald, the famous clown from the fast-food franchise. Such videos, in which Birch provides commentary, regularly get upwards of 100K plus views.

The short film which she contributed to the Jo Malone London Spring Artist Series, depicts an alien in 60s housewife drag crash landing in a botanical garden in Manchester, who then wanders around bemused and unsure of what to do in amongst all that nature. At one point in the film, she picks up a plastic fish out of a pond and waves it around like a toy. “Even though I always use humour as a way of expressing myself, it does have a personal undertone to it,” says Birch, when explaining the motivation behind her work. “Being a transgender woman is something that has made me feel quite alienated, artificial and unnatural because I'm not biologically female, and that was an insecurity of mine so for so many years.”