Create Your Own Drag Persona: Exploring Identity Through the Art of Drag
In this experiential workshop, drag becomes a powerful tool for self-exploration—where you are the canvas.
Proudly taking place at the 2025 Creative Mental Health Forum, Jay Glascott and Marlene ‘Marz’ Habib invite participants to step beyond societal expectations, embrace fluidity in gender expression, and bring untapped parts of themselves to life through the playful and transformative modality of drag.
This workshop is for everyone—not just those who identify as queer. Drag offers a space to explore all aspects of gender, whether embracing femme, masc, or something entirely unique to you. It’s an opportunity to experiment, play, and embody different expressions of self in a safe and creative space.
By creating an alter ego, you can step into a persona that dares, expresses, and liberates. Whether extravagant or subtle, bold or mysterious, your drag self can reveal new ways of seeing and being. Through costume, movement, and reflective practices, we will explore what it means to step into the unknown and bring to life the parts of ourselves that are often left unexpressed.
Image: Jay and Marz playing with drag in their backyard at home.
Designed for art therapists, mental health professionals, and artists, this workshop will be both playful and profound—an invitation to reimagine identity, challenge limitations, and embrace creative freedom. No prior experience with drag is necessary—just curiosity and a willingness to explore.
At the Creative Mental Health Forum, diversity is a core value that we celebrate in all its forms to enrich our community. We believe that the more diverse our community is, the more inspiring it is, and the more it is able to hold space for artistic exploration and deeper connections.
What to Bring:
✨ 2–3 items of clothing that excite you, inspire you, or just feel right for your drag persona—this will help us create an even more fabulous wardrobe to play with!
💄 Your own makeup—because no one knows your face like you do!
🎭 We’ll be bringing a stash of clothing, materials, hats, wigs, and face paints, but the more, the merrier—so bring anything that speaks to your creative spirit!
Get ready to mix, match, and transform! 🌟
*Jay and Marz are not professional drag artists, yet wild enthusiasts of the art form.
We are delighted to welcome Jay and Marz as a facilitators at the 2025 Creative Mental Health Forum and Collective Care Retreat.
Image: Jay and Marz out of drag and out in nature.
Introducing Jay Glascott and Marlene Habib
Jay
Jay Glascott (they/them) is a queer, non-binary/gender-fluid creative arts therapist who brings both professional expertise and lived experience to their practice. They specialise in working with neurodivergent children and individuals with disabilities, creating safe, expressive spaces where people can explore their emotions through art and movement. Since graduating from MIECAT in 2020, Jay has spent the last four years supporting others through creativity, fostering empowerment, and promoting authentic self-expression.
With a background as a professional dancer and nearly a decade living in London, Jay sees movement as a path to equanimity and flow. Their journey with drag—first in their teens at events like Minus18, and now through a lens of gender fluidity—continues to shape their creative and therapeutic practice.
Jay recognises the privilege of their Anglo-Australian and working-class upbringing while deeply understanding the impact of homophobia and bullying. Through an intersectional and compassionate approach, they are committed to fostering inclusive, affirming spaces for their community, using both their lived experience and professional skills to help others embrace their full potential.
Marz
Marlène Habib – Marz (she/her) is a creative arts therapist dedicated to trauma-informed, culturally responsive care. As a queer, Arab, cis woman with lived experience of family violence, she brings an intersectional perspective & insights to her work.
As an arts therapist, she has worked in a school for neurodivergent students, supporting children and teenagers who have experienced childhood neglect and family violence, and has worked alongside Indigenous children and young people in Far North Queensland to facilitate trauma informed and culturally sensitive art therapy processes.
Growing up in a patriarchal environment, she began questioning gender from an early age, challenging the boundaries of expression and what it meant to be born “female.” This curiosity shaped her understanding of identity, inspiring her to push beyond societal and cultural expectations.
With a background in visual arts photography, she integrates this medium, creating space for others to reclaim their perspective and tell their own stories.
Join us for the fifth annual Creative Mental Health Forum. 2nd – 5th May 2025.
Boon Wurrung Country: Inverloch, Victoria, Australia.
An immersive professional development event for allied health professionals, educators and creative practitioners who are deeply interested in the new paradigm of creative mental health and wellbeing.
Join us for the fifth annual Creative Mental Health Forum.
2nd – 5th May 2025.
WE WELCOME
CREATIVE THERAPISTS,
ALLIED HEALTH PROFESSIONALS
AND EDUCATORS WHO:
want to learn more about creative mental health,
be inspired by holistic and diverse workshops and presenters,
connect with like minded practitioners,
and “refill your well” with time in a beautiful nurturing environment and space for self care.
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