June 2023 QCC News
 26th Annual National Queer Arts Festival: week 3! Check out week 3of NQAF 2023!  We hope that you’ve had the chance to include our events in your Pride month celebrations! This week, we have two exciting back-to-back virtual events before we go all out for the 20th Annual Trans March here in the Bay Area. Our Executive Director, Anand Kalra, is hosting of the end of march rally this year. Check out all of the information below – we can’t wait to see you! P.S. If you’ve been to any of our NQAF events this year, would you please take a few moments to fill out our audience survey? Let us know what you loved so we can better prepare our future programming. Tell us your thoughts! This week’s QCC COMMISSIONED EVENTS Handle With Care: The Future of Art Handling Art Handlxrs* Date: Wednesday, June 21, 2023 This panel will explore the future of art handling and the importance of care, organizing and diversity in the art world. The conversation will feature leaders in the community and it will focus on uplifting individual and collective efforts that improve the conditions and sustainability of the industry.  Across Prison Walls: Building Community Through Letter-writing A.B.O. Comix Date: Thursday, June 22, 2023 Join A.B.O. Comix for an introduction to penpalling with incarcerated artists. The workshop is geared towards both first time writers and long term prisoner support advocates looking for community support. A.B.O. Comix is a collective of creators and activists who work to amplify the voices of LGBTQ prisoners through art. By working closely with prison abolitionist and queer advocacy organizations, we aim to keep queer prisoners connected to outside community and help them in the fight toward liberation. The profits we generate go back to incarcerated artists, especially those with little to no resources. Using the DIY ideology of “punk-zine” culture, A.B.O. was formed with the philosophy of mutual support, community and friendship.  Murmurations: Queer Power of Werq Xtal Azul & Gaia Weise Date: June 10 – 30, 2023 Murmurations: Queer Bodies of Werq is a pulsating, swooping, living, collective of queer ecologies featuring featuring installation, digital works, altars, and offerings that honor the relationship of queer bodies in nature. This engagement is curated by Xtal Azul and Gaia WXYZ, and is presented as part of the 26th annual National Queer Arts Festival, showing both virtually and in person at SOMARTS in San Francisco, CA from June 10 – June 30, 2023.  San Francisco Trans March Date: Friday, June 23, 2023 The San Francisco Trans March is San Francisco’s largest transgender Pride event and one of the largest trans events in the entire world. It’s always the Friday of Pride weekend and thousands of people attend. Several activists organized the first Trans March on June 25, 2004 with a gathering in Dolores Park followed by a march to Civic Center. A few hundred people attended the first march, twice as many the next year and it’s been growing ever since. The SF March is organized and run entirely by volunteers from the community. It gets better and better every year, so come be a part of our history! More Information A NQAF-filled Live & Queer!  Did you miss our in-person live taping of Live & Queer? Lucky for you, it’s now streaming on our Youtube! On this episode, Maya talks all about NQAF with guests from some of the other shows in the festival. Our guests include individuals from NQAF 2023 artists Gaia WXYZ & Xtal Azul, It’s Qwere, and OYSTERKNIFE, who gave us sneak peeks at their upcoming shows… Watch Now LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT  We acknowledge we are on unceded ancestral homeland of the original inhabitants of this land otherwise known as the San Francisco Bay Area. Click below to access our visual land acknowledgement created in partnership with The Association of Ramaytush Ohlone and Inés Ixierda for the National Queer Arts Festival. If you are non-Indigenous, we invite you to pay a Shuumi Land Tax to the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust – an urban Indigenous women-led land trust based in the San Francisco Bay Area that facilitates the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people. Copyright © *2021* *Queer Cultural Center*, All rights reserved. |
