Vibrant photos of New York’s Downtown performance scene

Photographer Andé Whyland arrived in New York’s East Village in 1979, back when the downtown neighbourhood was a bohemian outpost. She started hanging out at local hot spots like Club 57 and the Pyramid, documenting a new generation of artists, musicians, and performers including RuPaul, Grace Jones, Keith Haring, Fab 5 Freddy, and John Sex who redefined 1980s nightlife. 

“I started going there, meeting people, and photographing my friends,” says Whyland. ​“New York gave me direction but I didn’t think of it as a career; this was my contribution to them. I’ve had a lot of opportunities to share them with people but they just sat in boxes because they were slides.”

In 2020, Whyland revisited her archive for Shots: 1980 – 1986, a hypnotic trip back to pre-gentrification New York. Once the seal was broken, Whyland returned to her archive to unearth an electric collection of the downtown performance scene as it made its way from the clubs to the parks, streets, and beaches.

With her new book, Balloons and Feathers, Whyland and designer John Boyer bring together photographs made over the past 25 years at Wigstock, Drag March, Coney Island Mermaid Parade, and Howl Festival, as well as the Slipper Room, the legendary Lower East Side all-inclusive cabaret.

“In New York, you’re surrounded by constant details because things are going on all the time,” says Whyland who revels in the unexpected encounters that can only happen in a place where anything is possible.

Her glittering photographs are filled characters drawn from imagination run wild, a nod to her longtime love of costume, colour, and insouciance. The result is a carnivalesque haze of drag, burlesque, and masquerade in its many-splendoured forms, from a backyard country-western party in New Jersey to the Moko Jumbie Stilt Walkers at the New York Botanical Garden.

There is a tender familiarity to Whyland’s portraits that have the feel of a family album or community yearbook. ​“I’ve been going to the Mermaid Parade for many years. In fact, I think I even went to the first one in 1983,” she reveals. ​“Our friend Wendy Wild, who was very much a part of Club 57 and Pyramid, was one of the first mermaids at the parade.”

With Balloons and Feathers, Whyland comes full circle, celebrating the evolution of the city’s avant-garde scene as it has risen from the New York underground to dominate American pop culture in the new century.

“[New York is] each person’s dream come true if you have the courage to live it,” World Famous *BOB* says in the book. ​“To anyone considering the move to NYC here’s the truth: NYC is great no matter what time you get there and the moment you arrive washed up on its shores that’s when (for you) it all begins.”

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