The drag scene in Tbilisi exists in defiance. In a country where queer expression can invite violence or arrest, to perform in drag is to take a calculated risk. The shows unfold in basements and backrooms, improvised spaces of safety and solidarity in a culture that grants little of either. Jonathan Moore, a London-based photographer with a background in social policy, came to Georgia not to expose but to understand. “I began photographing this community not to sensationalize, but to bear witness,” he says. “These artists aren’t only performers; they are activists, thinkers, and friends, creating spaces where joy and protest blur into one another. Their shows are charged with satire and defiance, using parody, costume, and humour to expose hypocrisy and reclaim power. Every gesture on stage is a statement: we exist, and we will not be erased.”
Moore’s black-and-white portraits reveal the tension between vulnerability and defiance—the stillness before a performance, the quiet fatigue after, the collective effort to hold space for one another. Unlike in the West, where drag has entered the mainstream, Georgia’s scene remains marginal and precarious, shadowed by the legacy of violent intolerance. In 2013, a small anti-homophobia rally in Tbilisi was engulfed by a mob of thousands, many of them led by Orthodox priests. The police barriers gave way almost instantly. Video from that day shows a priest swinging a stool above his head while others shout, “Kill them!” and rain down curses. The images remain lodged in Georgia’s collective memory—a stark lesson in how easily faith can be weaponized. Public attitudes have shifted little since. Nearly nine in ten Georgians still say that homosexuality is “not justifiable,” according to the World Values Survey. Within that climate, the persistence of a drag scene at all feels extraordinary—a fragile expression of joy in a place that offers little encouragement for it. Moore’s photographs do not sensationalize or soften. They document, with restraint and respect, a community that insists on visibility, even when the cost of being seen is high
