The American LGBTQ+ Museum

Event Details

EVENT DETAILS

In honor of Transgender Day of Remembrance on November 20, Museum of the Moving Image presents Queens-born artist ray ferreira’s video An echo wails, whispers an undulating pattern during the weekend of November 15-17. Transgender Day of Remembrance celebrates queer visibility and remembers transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming persons whose lives were lost in acts of targeted violence.

On November 15, 5:30-8:00 p.m., in collaboration with The American LGBTQ+ Museum, MoMI will host an opening event including poetry readings by ray ferreira and Paolo Javier, and an artists’ discussion with Imara Jones, followed by a reception.

VIDEO

Exploring the connections between queerness, embodiment, and speculative fiction, this video installation looks at bodies as sources of labor power, their ideological construction, and the possibilities granted by history and indeterminate futures. Remixing time and space, artist ray ferreira uses poetic statements and blunt ramblings as she ponders how her body is situated in the world. The ocean, both metaphorically and historically, becomes a space in which she floats, sinks, and dances. With a dark blue, wavy ocean animated like a gif and an electronic dance beat in the background, ray vocalizes her thoughts through a non-human, alien/cyborg voice further delving into the land of an other. The words spoken are influenced by a mixture of cultures—like ray herself, who is a queer, Black Latina.

SCHEDULE

• 5:30 p.m.: Viewing of An echo wails, whispers an undulating pattern (12 min)

• 6:00 p.m.: Poetry readings by ray ferreira and Paolo Javier

• 6:20 p.m.: A discussion with Imara Jones, ray ferreira, and Paolo Javier
• 7:00 p.m.: Reception begins and guests invited to write their thoughts or poems for the Wall of Remembrance

Doors open at 5:00 p.m.

ACCESSIBILITY

We strive to host inclusive, accessible events that enable all individuals, including individuals with disabilities, to engage fully. Please reach out with any questions, requests or needs to info@americanlgbtqmuseum.org. For more information about accessibility at Museum of the Moving Image, please view their website here.

BIOS

ray ferreira

ray ferreira (she/her) is a performer of sorts whose work explores the relationship between materiality and ideology; both of which are made and remade in bodies—my body. Born in Corona, Queens, she has been an artist in residence at Institute for Electronic Arts and Emerge NYC. ferreira has exhibited and performed across North America at various institutions including Owens Art Gallery, Carleton University Art Gallery, Performance Space New York, MoMA PS1, Queens Museum, Centro de Arte Eduardo León Jimenes, and Brooklyn Museum. ray’s work has also been published as part of Poet’s Together: A Poets’ Tour of Little Island Reader, Passenger Pigeon Press; First Made Into Language, Southern Exposure; Femmescapes zine. She received an MFA from Hunter College and currently lives in Brooklyn in a small dollhouse.

Imara Jones

Imara, whose work has won Emmy and Peabody Awards, is the creator of TransLash Media, a cross-platform, non-profit journalism and narrative organization, which produces content to shift the current culture of hostility towards transgender people in the US. She was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People on the planet in 2023. As part of her work at TransLash, Imara hosts the TransLash Podcast with Imara Jones, which received the 2023 Outstanding Podcast Award from GLAAD ; as well as the investigative, limited series, The Anti-Trans Hate Machine: A Plot Against Equality which received the Excellence in Podcasting Award from the National LGBTQ+ Journalists Association. Imara is also the first trans person to ever receive an award from the National Black Journalists Association, having garnered the Journalist of Distinction Award in 2022. Also in 2022, Politico named her as one of the 40 power players at the intersection of race, politics, and policy in the United States. In 2020 Imara was featured on the cover of Time Magazine as part of its New American Revolution special edition. In 2019 she chaired the first-ever UN High Level Meeting on Gender Diversity with over 600 participants. Imara has been featured regularly in The Guardian, The Nation, MSNBC, CNBC, NPR, Fast Company and GQ. Imara is a 2021 Nathan Cummings Foundation Fellow and a 2019 Soros Equality Fellow.

Paolo Javier

The former Queens Borough Poet Laureate (2010-2014), Paolo Javier has produced three albums of sound poetry with Listening Center (David Mason), including the  cassette LP/pamphlet Ur’lyeh/ Aklopolis, and the booklet/cassette EP Maybe the Sweet Honey Pours. His poetry is featured in Sean Hanley’s experimental documentary The Whelming Sea, and his collaboration with Lynne Sachs on her short film SWERVE, based on his book-length comics poem O.B.B., had its world premiere at BAM Cinemafest. The recipient of a Rauschenberg Foundation Artist Grant, Javier is the author of seven volumes of poetry, including the forthcoming Near Your Mirror Home (Stay On). Born and raised in Manila, he lives with his family in Jackson Heights, Queens, unceded Lenapehoking.