2024: JOURNEY TO THE JOYPOCALYPSE!

qcc staff stand in a row, smiling. left to right are vienna, anand, sarah, and ali. bright sparkly gold text reads "queer cultural center wishes you JOY in 2024" on top, with staff names at the bottom

Daoism teaches that 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows fill a life. If you ask us, lately humanity’s collective sorrows seem to be piling up way too fast to keep the balance. Too much trauma, too little recovery. Too much need for our communities’ brilliant resilience, too little space to celebrate queer people’s improbable and persistent existence. Too much talk of an impending apocalypse!

To keep our queer hearts beating strong through this ongoing period of cascading collective trauma, we need a JOYpocalypse! A QTBIPOCalypse! An ARTpocalypse! And all at the same time! We’re gonna need a perfect storm of people power whirling together in gorgeous harmony if we hope to stand a chance of feeling anything close to whole this time next year. No pressure!

Want some good news? 

Queer Cultural Center has been preparing for this moment for years. We’ve presented twenty six consecutive annual National Queer Arts Festivals and trained more than a thousand LGBTQIA2S+ artists through our Creating Queer Communities artist professional development program. 

In 2023 alone, we:

  • Grew our staff to four full-time employees for the first time ever;
  • Attracted over 33,000 audience members to 30 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events;
  • Supported our 11 fiscally sponsored projects with fundraising, finance management, and promotion;
  • Provided hands-on support to 55 individual artists with event production, marketing, and/or fundraising; and
  • Awarded $60,000 in new works commissions to Bay Area LGBTQIA2S+ artists and artist collectives.

In 2024, we’re focusing all our energy on creating collective experiences of liberatory joy. 

We’re not talking about a cheap thrill or a quick buzz that fades away even quicker. We’re talking about deeply transformative projects like: 

  • ‘Eyoomkuuka’ro Kokomaar (We Paddle Together), where indigenous artist and activist L. Frank Manriquez will launch the 4th community-constrcuted tiaat canoe to be built in 250 years at Aquatic Cove in San Francisco. 
  • OYSTERKNIFE’s reclamatory revolution “&Seeking”, in which Gabriele Christian and Chibueze Crouch reconstruct Grace Cathedral to interrogate their Afro-Diasporic lineages inside the Christian church using Igbo masquerade, church mime, experimental video, house music, and choreography;
  • Two separate cohorts of Creating Queer Communities artists, presented for the first time in a Spring National Queer Arts Festival and a Fall National Queer Arts Festival;
  • Bay Area American Indian Two Spirits’ 13th Annual Two-Spirit Pow Wow at the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, In Lak’ech Dance Academy’s 6th Annual Queer Afro-Latin Dance Festival in San Jose, the Trans March San Francisco 20th anniversary; and
  • SO MUCH MORE that we’re SO EXCITED to tell you about SO SOON. 

Want even more good news? You’re invited on this JOURNEY TO THE JOYPOCALYPSE! Here are five things you can do right now to make this joy seep deep into every nook and cranny of our beloved queer community:

  1. By December 31: Make a tax-deductible donation to Queer Cultural Center of any amount!
  2. By January 7: Apply to the emerging artist Creating Queer Communities cohort!
  3. between now and June: Volunteer your time with L. Frank & team for ‘Eyoomkuuka’ro Kokomaar 
  4. February 9 & 10: Volunteer your time at the BAAITS Two-Spirit Pow Wow.
  5. All the time: Follow us on instagram at @QCC_SF to like, comment, and share our posts and stories!
  6. Any time: Invite your friends and chosen family to join you in any of the above – it’s as simple as forwarding this email. :D

Are you ready for this JOYPOCALYPSE?

We are!

Joypocalyptically yours,

Ali Scott, Anand Kalra, Sarah Guerra, & Vienna Alvarez

Queer Cultural Center staff team

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