On Saturday, February 15, 2025, from 2pm to 4pm, I co-hosted the NOTHING NEW Opening Reception at 465 Collective: Space, located at 465 S. Van Ness, San Francisco / Yelamu. This was the first show as part of the collective, and the Opening Reception brought together a strong, diverse community of queer, trans, and immigrant artists, neighbors, and comrades. The show features 66 Immigrant and / or Queer artists from across North America, ranging in age from 16 to 60+, and from all types of practices, including dance, film, poetry, painting, and sculpture.
The theme NOTHING NEW speaks to this very specific moment within this particular universe on this planet and within this (fractured) United States. NOTHING NEW honors both the liberating force that is our creative (collective) expression as Queer and Immigrant artists AND the undeniable fact that Immigrants and Queers are the constant target of state repression, subjugation, and oppression. It also affirms that there is NOTHING NEW about our communities uniting in the face of this repression to create, as my comrade (and NOTHING NEW artist) Crystal Mason says, "a way out of no way," which is a reference to how Black Americans struggled during the Jim Crow South to create their own communities of care and support within the brutality and confinement of segregation.
The entirety of this show, from the initial conception to the Call for Art to the gallery prepping to the install to the Nothing New Opening Reception to the gallery sits, is a collective effort. Many different hands have gone into making it a reality, and it is this mutuality that has made this a generative experience. This generation is in direct contrast to the increased targeted criminalization and terrorizing of immigrants and the violent erasure of trans (and queer) language and, thus, identities from policies, monuments, national parks, healthcare, and more. Even against this backdrop, when we could fracture ourselves into smaller and smaller segments to ensure our individual survival, we come together to create, celebrate, and protest. This is our collective power.
I am hella grateful to be part of a community of artists, organizers, cultural producers, comrades, and neighbors that practice the art of mutual care, aid, and support. It keeps sustaining me through the darkest of moments, and, like the moon, shines not because of our own internal light but because we reflect the light of our interdependence. We are more than just our selves in space. We are of the cosmos. And that is, quite simply, NOTHING NEW.
