Free Third Thursday

Join us for a free evening at MOCA with galleries open late, live music by KXCI Community Radio, food by Bisou Burger, and drinks by Brick Box Brewery! This month, enjoy presentations and hands-on activities that explore the connections between art, nature, and technology highlighted in the current exhibition Fernando Palma Rodríguez: Tlazohuelmanaz (Offering of Love), offering visitors creative ways to engage with the exhibition’s focus on environmental care, interdependency, and the preservation of Indigenous knowledge.

At 6:30pm, conservationist Robert Villa will speak about the bio-cultural origins of the Sonoran Desert region as demonstrated through academic and Indigenous knowledges of amphibians and reptiles. Villa will bring live animals like a Gila Monster and a rattlesnake for visitors to experience up close.

At 7:30pm, Logan Phillips, poet and volunteer organizer with TBOSC – Tucson Birthplace Open Space Coalition, will share words about the land, the coalition’s work, and how you can join this joyous effort. TBOSC is composed of organizations and individuals from across regional cultures, backgrounds and generations united in the concern for the future of the land located between S-cuk Ṣon (Sentinel Peak / ‘A’ Mountain) and the Santa Cruz River. TBOSC works to honor the past and manifest a more just future by working together to heal our common sacred ground in the present.

All evening, participate in hands-on installation and artmaking activities, and learn about the agricultural heritage of the Sonoran Desert:

BICAS (Bicycle Inter-Community Art & Salvage) will facilitate a drop-in artmaking tutorial using recycled materials and kinetic components. All ages and experience levels welcome!

Mission Garden will host a community outreach table to share information about the garden and offer a selection of seasonally available items harvested from the garden.

An interactive sculpture by artist Joseph O’Connell will be on display in the plaza. A metal sphere constellated with glowing dots representing the exact locations of the stars around us, Celestial Orb presents itself as a playful star-finder, inviting visitors to interact with it and explore their place in the universe. Inspired by Southern Arizona’s motif of space exploration and stargazing, O’Connell’s open invitation to the public is to gather around the bonfire of red starlight in communities. Celestial Orb is the centerpiece of the Solar-Stellar observatory being built at Tucson’s Second Sky Science Garden and Social Club.

Plus, view the evolving exhibition (~) Echo (  ) in its second phase! Through moving image works, optical lenses, and a four-channel sound composition, artist Rebeca Bollinger and musician Patricio Coronado meditate on how distance and proximity inform meaning and perception, and create intimacy from afar through the transmission of image and sound.

About the Exhibitions

On view in the Great Hall is Tlazohuelmanaz (offering of love), a solo exhibition by artist Fernando Palma Rodríguez that features a series of newly commissioned robotic sculptures that interweave art, nature, and technology exploring shared issues like climate, water, and the care for Indigenous knowledge, which impact both the artist’s home and community in Milpa Alta, Mexico as well as communities in the Sonoran Desert. On view in the East Wing Galleries is Living With Injury, an exhibition centering the environmental justice movement led by Mexican American community members in their fight against defense industry pollution that caused widespread illness in the southside of Tucson in the 1980s. Featuring archival materials, and the work of local artists, journalists, researchers, and community members, the project reflects on the power of community organizing, disability justice, and collective healing in the face of environmental racism; and (~) Echo (  ), a two-part installation environment by artist Rebeca Bollinger that combines sculptural objects, architectural interventions, light refractions, and audio installations in collaboration with Gus Tomizuka in the first phase and Patricio Coronado in the second phase.

Monthly Free Thursdays are presented in collaboration with KXCI Community Radio.