We are excited to be reopening MOCA with the current slate of exhibitions. The first four days, July 9 – 12, we will open for our arts community, donors, members and frontline workers. Starting July 16, we will open to all on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. 
While the museum has sat quietly waiting for your return, we have been working to ensure that everyone’s visit will be safe and enjoyable. Please stay tuned for updates and details on how to book a ticket and safely visit the museum.

We can’t wait to welcome you back to MOCA and feel the art come to life again!
Now on Shift Key
Nicholas Galanin
Tsu Héidei Shugaxtutaan 1 and 2
June 20–July 3

Tsu Héidei Shugaxtutaan translates to We will again open this container of wisdom that has been left in our care. The work is named for the song being danced in by the non-Tlingit dancer. Galanin suggests opening containers of wisdom to create connection between generations as contribution to living culture. This work embodies celebration of culture and the necessity of contribution over consumption. In this early work Galanin explores song, dance, language, as intersecting streams to carry cultural continuum. The work asserts Tlingit song and dance as contemporary and relevant, blending them seamlessly with contemporary song and dance as a beacon for what is possible when culture is allowed to grow and expand to navigate new circumstances. Rather than a juxtaposition of time or place, the video expands both by weaving together image, sound and motion.
Marsha P. Johnson,
Photographed by Gun Roze

In honour of Pride, this week's Shift Key offering differs from previous weeks. Rather than a video, film or moving image work, we have chosen to put forward a single still image. 

This picture is of Marsha P. Johnson in 1982, captured by Toronto street photographer Gun Roze, on one of his trips to Manhattan. Marsha “Pay it no Mind” Johnson (1945-1992), who once went by the name, "Black Marsha," was a black, queer, gender-nonconforming activist, hustler and drag queen. Gun’s photograph is one of several newly available sources—articles, artwork, audio and video recordings, documentaries and essays— that have enabled her many layers and self-images to unfold to a wider audience.

Shelagh Keeley guides us through her exhibition An Embodied Haptic Space
An Embodied Haptic Space will be available to view again from July 9. The exhibition combines a series of tarp paintings from 1986, a film projection from 2016, and a site-specific ephemeral wall drawing. All three bodies of work are extensions of an intuitive conceptual process in which Keeley knots together the past, present and future.

TD Community Sunday: Children’s Book Reading & Activity with Nadia L. Hohn
On Sunday, June 28 , MOCA will welcome author Nadia L. Hohn to our digital learning space for our June TD Community Sunday. We will be sharing a video of Nadia reading a selection of excerpts from her picture books Malaika’s Costume and Malaika’s Winter Carnival , along with a hands-on activity created by Nadia to accompany her stories!

Activity: Home Workspace Collage Inspired by the Work of Sarah Sze
Many of us have been working or learning from home these past months and you have likely set up a temporary office or workspace. This exercise asks us to explore our current desk setting in detail, informed by Sarah Sze’s work Images in Debris, which consists of an L-shaped desk covered in hundreds of items that reference time, accumulation and practices of editing.

Image Credits:

Photo by Gabriel Li.

Nicholas Galanin, Tsu Héidei Shugaxtutaan 1 , 2006. Film still.

Gun Roze, Marsha P. Johnson, Christopher Street, Manhattan, 1982. Courtesy of the artist.

Interview with Shelagh Keeley. Film still. Video by Lulu Wei/Edited by Lester Lubuguin.

Malaika’s Costume, Nadia L. Hohn, Irene Luxbacher, Groundwood Books.

Sarah Sze, Images in Debris , 2018. MOCA Toronto. Courtesy the artist, Victoria Miro Gallery, London and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery (New York and Los Angeles). Photo by Toni Hafkenscheid.
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