#MOCA MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART SERIES#

Chock-full of artistry and talent, the members of this house have collectively and individually become inspiring leaders for the queer and Asian communities. With the purpose to increase representation, Shay Dior founded Canada’s only all-Asian drag family, becoming matriarch of the House of Rice. They can often be found sharing their art and performing in drag at various venues, not only locally, but also internationally. Shay Dior is a Vietnamese-Canadian drag luminary whose aesthetic channels both King and Queen drag elements into a harmonious body of gender fluidity. Sikh is independent to death and produces much of his own work. Sikh Knowledge (he/him/his) takes well-simmered eastern melodies and marries them to thumpin AF drums evoking the east and west indies with tinges of underground hip-hop, 80s/90s reggae, and modernity. One of the house performers of NHQ, Phemynina has seduced and tickled audiences at iconic venues such as The Gladstone Hotel for draglesque-show “Under Where?”, at Sky Dragon for “Asian drag-brunch Queens of Dim Sum”, and performed digitally for New York’s original Queer Asian party, “Bubble_T.” For her, drag is an opportunity to access femininity and art on her own terms - a means of experiencing both gender euphoria and creative freedom all at once. The persona of Phemynina is an evolution from her former drag persona, LOLA. Phemynina (they/she, fka LOLA) is a Filipino trans non-binary drag performer.

Nookie Galore’s DRAG focuses on queering up the hustle and bridging our connection to “home.” Reminding us that dreaming is part of our survival and that nightmares are dreams too. They have been spotlighted in CBC, the documentary “No Fats, No Femmes, No Asians,” performed at multiple galleries, theatre festivals, bars, and washroom stalls, and published in the book Diasporic Intimacies: Queer Filipinos and Canadian Imaginaries. They are often referred to as the Angel of New Ho Queen. Nookie Galore is a PilipinX horror-storytelling panda drag queen that is born on All Saints Day.

Drinks and snacks will be available for purchase. Please note that this programme is reserved for ages 19+ and ID will be required upon entry. We will be joined by special guest DJ Sikh Knowledge, as well as performances by Ricecake’s Shay Dior from Vancouver and Bom Bae from Season 3 of Canada’s Drag Race. Sing your go-to “happy place” song in the private karaoke booth and indulge in complimentary snacks, as you sip on cocktails and let your freak out on the dancefloor with our house DJs and performers.

#MOCA MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART SERIES#

In conjunction with Rirkrit Tiravanija’s untitled 2013 (thomas demand’s here), enjoy a series of curated live performances and karaoke from 8–11 pm. Through the fusion of art, nightlife, fashion, and performance, NHQ aims to create opportunities to reconnect with one’s own communities while uplifting the queer Asian creatives of the city. New Ho Queen is a Toronto-based creative collective that focuses on providing spaces of celebration made for and by the queer Asian community. MOCA remains an oasis of low-rise tranquility with a deliberately different layout from traditional museums.Join us for a New Ho Queen takeover of the MOCA on October 22, and celebrate your guilty pleasures with us! Isozaki deliberately designed the building to face inward towards the California Plaza development. At its opening, critics derided the building's windowless, blank wall along the Grand Street sidewalk, but East Asian traditions were referenced with the play between positive and negative (building and courtyard) space. Isozaki chose forms and shapes for the building that were vaguely traditional, but mostly abstract. Only four of its seven levels are above the street level.Īdministrative offices are located at the level of Upper Grand Street under a barrel-shaped roof. Under and around the courtyard are the public galleries. The entrance is marked by an arch leading to a subterranean terraced courtyard. Japanese architect Arata Isozaki created a contrast to the extreme heights of the Bunker Hill glass-and-steel high rise towers by designing MOCA as a sunken, red sandstone-clad space. In addition to private donations, funds for MOCA came from a 1.5 % allocation of budgets from Bunker Hill development projects required to go towards public art. When the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) opened its permanent quarters at California Plaza in 1987, Bunker Hill was a multi-level landscape of sprouting skyscrapers.

Moca museum of contemporary art