Queer|Art is excited to present Queer|Art|Pride 2024—the 8th annual summer festival celebrating the brilliant artistry and resilience of NYC’s queer and trans communities. Queer|Art|Pride convenes a diverse network of artists, performers, writers, and creatives to offer a fabulous array of public programs throughout the month of June.
First, QA presents Flagging the Circle, an exciting group exhibition of collaboratively made artworks by 60+ queer artists from the Queer|Art|Mentorship community. The show is on view from June 11th–20th at Sargent’s Daughters gallery in Lower Manhattan, and will be accompanied by a grand closing event on June 20th. The centerpiece of the exhibition will be an online silent auction from June 1st–20th, raising funds to provide direct support to QA’s national artist community.
To close out the month, QA partners with Body Hack & Mister Sunday to host The Tuck, a nonstop weekend-long Pride festival. Taking over the entirety of NYC’s Pride weekend, the team will transform Nowadays’ 16,000-square-foot Ridgewood space into an extravaganza of indoor & outdoor festivities spanning Saturday, June 29th and Sunday, June 30th. The Tuck will fundraise for GLITS, an organization founded by Ceyenne Doroshow that provides immediate crisis support, healthcare access, and stable housing for transgender and sex worker communities in New York City.
Read more about our Pride celebration and all its sensational guest stars below!
QUEER|ART x BODY HACK
x MISTER SUNDAY
PRESENT NONSTOP PRIDE
WEEKEND FESTIVAL
FUNDRAISING FOR GLITS
For the entire duration of Pride weekend (June 29th—30th), Queer|Art teams up with Body Hack (the collectively run party and mutual aid project fundraising for trans communities across the Americas) and Mister Sunday (the long-running NY Sunday party series) to host a nonstop Pride festival! The weekend-long celebration will include indoor and outdoor activities, and will raise essential funds for GLITS.
Kicking off Saturday’s packed slate of programming is Little Wigs, a family Pride event for all ages. Running from 12–4PM in Nowadays’ outdoor space, this segment will include youth-friendly drag performances and storytelling, a drag performance workshop facilitated by Kelindah bee Schuster (AKA Theydy Bedbug), face painting, queer crafts, costume swap, circus performers, and more! Parents and caregivers can also attend a teach-in by lawyer and trans rights activist Chase Strangio to connect about ways to defend trans youth in NYC and stop far right parents from taking over our school boards.
We continue the afternoon with the return of Body Hack’s famed Clothing Swap, where style enthusiasts can exchange their wardrobes with gently-used pieces, blending eco-friendly eleganza with a lively community spirit. Queer and trans tailors from Brooklyn Sewing Academy will be on site providing on-demand alterations for attendees and their new clothing finds. Shoppers can also peruse the concurrent Vendor Fair, which will spotlight an abundance of trans and queer creatives, providing tattoos, haircuts, tarot card and oracle readings, handmade clothing and accessories, comics and zines, posters, prints, tinctures, and more. Patrons can also expect smoke blends and giveaways, courtesy of local cannabis dispensary Bliss + Lex.
Nightfall will commence T4TV, a movie night spotlighting short films by an international line-up of trans filmmakers, curated by Río Sofia, Reya Sehgal, and Catching On Thieves. T4TV will screen 13 shorts (runtime: 110 minutes), along with a recorded discussion with the participating filmmakers, Catching On Thieves, and special guest, 2023 QAM Mentor Lilly Wachowski. Live streaming will be available.
Saturday’s late night party launches with a live performance from vocalist and multiinstrumentalist KeiyaA, and continues with an iconic back-to-back DJ set by Ceyenne Doroshow and Maya Margarita.
After a dance filled night, Sunday dawns with a transcendent and exclusive sunrise performance by Keioui Keijaun Thomas. Afternoon fun includes the new segment, Birdettas—which presents a games lounge replete with video, card, and board games—co-produced with CRITICAL HIT, a trans-centered party merging the worlds of gaming and dance, and the queer chess club Queers Gambit. Afterwards it’s the special Pride edition of Mister Sunday, Mx. Pride, with musical artist Ariel Zetina stepping into the DJ booth to deliver a flawless six hour set that blends techno, Chicago house, and Belizean punta.
Cap off your Pride weekend of marching, clubbing, and sunbathing at The Tuck, where the evening continues with an exclusive release party of vocalist and performer STEFA*’s debut album Born With an Extra Rib, followed by a performance from experimental harpist and singer-songwriter femme queen Ahya Simone, and unruly rapper Rah Rah Gabor. Sunday night comes to an intimate close with fireside poetry readings in the yard curated by viento izquierdo ugaz and Nana XOXO.
Attendees will party on the dance floor throughout the entire 36 hour festival, with nonstop music being served up by rotating DJ superstars, including Nymph, Boyz II Them, Cisne, ARCHANGEL, Kilopatrah Jones, Reverend Dollars, HEAVY PLEASURE, Soo Intoit, BLAIZE, Byrell The Great, and more.
The daytime festivities on both Saturday, 6/29 and Sunday, 6/30 are open to all ages, and at night shifts to 21+. Tickets can be purchased via the links below, or at the door.
RSVP valid for Saturday, 6/29, 12-10PM, including:
Little Wigs (a family Pride event for all ages); a Vendor Fair and Clothing Swap; T4TV (a movie night spotlighting shorts by emerging trans filmmakers)
Tickets valid for Saturday, 6/29 10PM through late night Sunday, 6/30, including:
Live performances; nonstop dancing & DJ sets; Birdettas (games lounge); Poetry readings
ABOUT GLITS
GLITS (Gays & Lesbians Living in a Transgender Society) provides immediate crisis support, healthcare access, and stable housing for transgender and sex worker communities in New York City. Founded by activist and public figure Ceyenne Doroshow, the organization addresses the health and rights crises faced by the transgender and sex worker communities, holistically using harm reduction, human rights principles, and economic and social justice strategies to source solutions from their own communities.
In 2020, after a viral fundraising campaign, GLITS purchased a $2 million 12-unit residential building in Queens, named GLITS 1 South, that would be the first Black trans-owned housing community in New York City. Centering Black trans leadership, GLITS is committed to building future community leaders and is grounded in a multi-generational approach to growth. This Pride Festival at Nowadays marks the launch of a $500k fundraising campaign for the next chapter of GLITS’ critical work.
ABOUT BODY HACK
“We believe in prioritizing a mindset of abundance over scarcity. We believe that trans people are brilliantly resourceful, and that we don’t need to depend on people who don’t understand or value who we are and what we do in order to survive. We strive to build interdependence within our communities, we can get what we need by supporting one another. We refuse to be respectable in our fundraising, we can be our whole selves when we ask for support and when we give it. We believe organizing should be fun and feel fulfilling in order to be sustainable. We honor the long standing relationship our communities have to nightlife—as a refuge and space to seek pleasure and possibility.”
—Body Hack Organizers
Body Hack is a collectively run party and mutual aid project that serves simultaneously as a community space and decentralized fundraising platform for trans and nonbinary BIPOC initiatives. Originally a happy hour for trans and nonbinary people set in a tiny Brooklyn dive bar, Body Hack has grown into a transnational project seeking to model a world where trans communities can thrive interdependently. Body Hack now throws monthly parties at Nowadays in Ridgewood (Queens), creating space for trans people to gather, celebrate, and extend support to one another. Each party doubles as a fundraiser for a trans-related initiative, and has raised over $300k in the last five years.
FLAGGING THE CIRCLE
A GROUP EXHIBITION & SILENT AUCTION
QA is pleased to present Flagging the Circle, an exciting group exhibition of collaboratively made artworks by 60+ queer artists from the Queer|Art|Mentorship community. The show is on view from June 11th–20th at Sargent’s Daughters gallery in Lower Manhattan, and will be accompanied by a grand closing event on June 20th. The centerpiece of the exhibition will be an online silent auction from June 1st–20th, raising funds to provide direct support to QA’s national artist community.
You can view the complete online gallery of works below, and place your bid today!
The works on view restage the classic Surrealist parlor game known as the Exquisite Corpse—where one player draws on a sheet of paper, conceals their contribution, then passes it to the next player for a further contribution. Queer|Art invited pairs of Mentors & Fellows past to team up to create their own version of the Exquisite Corpse, reviving intergenerational connections across the country. The resulting works challenge preconceived notions of what queer embodiment looks like, and gleefully move between modes of creative expression.
Participating artists include: jose esteban abad, Seyi Adebanjo, Kearra Amaya Gopee, Frances Arpaia, Katherine Bahena-Benitez, Maria Bauman, Kate Bornstein, Demetri Burke, Anna Campbell, Candystore, Geoff Chadsey, Xandra Clark, Liz Collins, Kyle Coniglio, David Antonio Cruz, CQ, Marco DaSilva, Will Davis, Avram Finkelstein, C. Finley, Lola Flash, T. Fleischmann, Camilo Godoy, Goodw.y.n, Gayatri Gopinath, Lucas Habte, Miranda Haymon, Rick Herron, Fatima Jamal, Natalia Leite, Zefyr Lisowski, Mev Luna, Heather Lynn Johnson, Angelo Madsen Minax, Ricky Maldonado, María José Maldonado, Sarah Mihara Creagen, Rodrigo Moreira, Carlos Motta, Carrie Moyer, Mashuq Mushtaq Deen, Samantha Nye, Catching On Thieves, Eva Peskin, Xoài Phạm, Will Rawls, Eva Reign, Charles Rice-Gonzalez, Miller Robinson, Anthony Rosado, Ira Sachs, Nelson Santos, Zander Schlacter, Kelindah bee Schuster, Nora Sharp, Pamela Sneed, Stacy Szymaszek, Frédéric Tcheng, Antonius Tin-Bui, Julie Tolentino, Rose Troche, Jeanne Vaccaro, Lilly Wachowski, Justine Williams, Brendan Williams-Childs, Stephen Winter, Eva Yaa Asantewaa, Lu Yim, Constantina Zavitzanos, Sarah Zapata, agustine zegers.
Flagging the Circle is made possible by Framebridge, Legion Paper, and Sargent’s Daughters.
PRIDE ARCHIVE
2023
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