Queer|Art has announced the 2024 edition of Queer|Art|Pride—the 8th annual summer festival celebrating the brilliant artistry and resilience of NYC’s queer and trans communities.
This year, the organization partners 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 The Tuck, a nonstop weekend-long Pride festival. Taking over the entirety of New York City’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.
Saturday’s packed slate of programming includes an afternoon celebration for queer and trans families organized by Kelindah bee Schuster, an arts bazaar complete with a clothing swap and local vendor fair, a movie night spotlighting emerging trans filmmakers, and sensational DJ sets by Heavy Pleasure, SCAAARR, Body Hack resident DJs Cisne and ARCHANGEL, as well as drag performances and an iconic back-to-back DJ set by Ceyenne Doroshow and Maya Margarita. After late-night dancing, the party continues on Sunday with transcendent sunrise performances by Keioui Keijaun Thomas and Stefa*, poetry readings, a games lounge replete with video, card, and board games, and more.
Attendees will party on the dance floor throughout the entire 36-hour festival, and on Sunday afternoon Mister Sunday returns with a special Pride edition, Mx. Pride, with musical artist Ariel Zetina stepping into the DJ booth to serve up a flawless six hour set that blends techno, Chicago house, and Belizean punta.
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.
Queer|Art|Pride @ The Tuck (Saturday, June 29th, 12-10PM) RSVP encouraged, donations to GLITS accepted at the door– An afternoon celebration for queer and trans families, An arts bazaar complete with a clothing swap and local vendor fair, A movie night spotlighting emerging trans filmmaker
Body Hack Nonstop @ The Tuck (Saturday, June 29th 10PM – late night Sunday, June 30th) Ticket purchase required in advance or at the door– Nonstop dancing with DJs Heavy Pleasure, Ariel Zetina, Maya Margarita, ARCHANGEL, Cisne, Ceyenne Doroshow, SCAAARR, and more, Live sunrise performances by Stefa* and Keioui Keijaun Thomas, Games lounge with video, board, and card games, Poetry open mic
MORE: queer-art.org/pride
About
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.
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 $500k in the last six years.
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
Mister Sunday is a long-running party organized and hosted by DJs Eamon Harkin and Justin Carter. Initiated in 2009 in DIY spaces and local backyards, the popular nightlife series eventually set up shop in a shuttered cabinet factory, which ultimately evolved into Nowadays—the widely acclaimed indoor-outdoor dance club and bar located on the border of Bushwick and Ridgewood.
In the 15 years since their project’s origin, Harkin and Carter have produced countless adjacent nightlife series, and founded the label Mister Saturday Night Records. “We work hard to come up with a list of residents that we think reflects the diversity that exists within the community; we want to make sure that’s reflected behind the DJ booth,” Harkin says.
Queer|Art connects and empowers LGBTQ+ artists across generations and creative disciplines. Founded in 2009, we are an artist-led and community-centered organization—united by shared values of collective care, creative resilience, and the preservation and advancement of queer legacies and queer futures.
The devastating loss of a generation of artists to the ongoing AIDS pandemic has created a profound longing for cross-generational connections, mentorship, and community. Queer|Art serves as a ballast against this loss, seeking to highlight and address a continuing fundamental lack of both economic and institutional support for our community.
Ongoing programmatic initiatives include: our annual cornerstone program, the year-long Queer|Art|Mentorship and a wide array of awards, grants, and offerings that provide direct support to LGBTQ+ artists. queer-art.org + @queerart