Midnight at MOCA

Tickets: $15
MOCA Members: $10
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TICKETS

Celebrate the longest night of the year by joining MOCA for a nocturnal offering of events on our outdoor plaza! Experience MOCA after-hours with a range of programs that look to the night skies and respond to the changing seasons while enjoying a selection of wines informed by lunar cycles provided by Pearly Baker!

The evening begins with an experiential talk with Amy Oliver, who explores why Earth has seasons, what the December solstice means to astronomers, and why it has significance in cultures around the world.

Later, poet Javier Zamora reads a selection of new and published poems that center the Sonoran desert, the border wall, and migration, some from his acclaimed collection of poems Unaccompanied (Copper Canyon Press, 2017). 

Closing out the evening, musician and artist Karima Walker performs a durational, ambient set. Absorb this sonic landscape by Walker while gazing up at the night sky or touring MOCA’s exhibitions!

Throughout the night psychic, medium, and tarot reader Jess Morgan Grace will offer individual readings for an additional fee.

Plus:
Galleries open until midnight!
Hot Chocolate Bar!

 

Attendance information:

Weather permitting, this event will be held on MOCA’s outdoor plaza. Please dress accordingly.

To ensure the safety of all museum visitors and staff, please note the following protocols will be followed at this event:

– All visitors and staff are required to wear masks and practice social distancing at all times when on the museum premises (indoor and outdoor), regardless of vaccination status.

 

Amy C. Oliver, FRAS, is a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador living in Tucson, Arizona. She is the public affairs officer and visitor & science center manager for the Smithsonian Institution’s Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory, a sky presenter at the Mount Lemmon Sky Center, and the Public Information & News Manager at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Amy also serves as an astronomy representative on the Tucson Sign Design Review Committee and on the Tucson/Pima County Outdoor Lighting Code Committee. She is a recognized public scientist and light pollution expert, and her work earned her an election as a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2021.

Karima Walker is a musician and artist living in Tucson, Arizona. Her work uses songwriting, sampling, field recording, video, installation and collaboration to ask questions about place, the duality of inner and outer landscapes and one’s role in the natural world. More recently her interests have explored ecological restoration, Deep Listening, mythology of the west and the narratives that inform our participation with the environment, natural or otherwise. She has collaborated with artists in the fields of dance, sculpture, film and creative non-fiction. She tours nationally and internationally and her work has been featured in Pitchfork, NPR, MTV and The New Yorker Radio Hour.

Javier Zamora was born in El Salvador, in 1990. His father fled El Salvador when he was a year old, and his mother when he was about to turn five. In 1999, Javier migrated through Guatemala, Mexico, and the Sonoran Desert. His debut poetry collection, Unaccompanied, explores how immigration and the civil war have impacted his family. Zamora was a 2018–2019 Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University and holds fellowships from MacDowell, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Poetry Foundation (Ruth Lilly), Stanford University (Stegner), and Yaddo. He is the recipient of a 2017 Lannan Literary Fellowship, the 2017 Narrative Prize, and the 2016 Barnes & Noble Writer for Writers Award. His memoir, SOLITO, will be published in September 2022 by Hogarth (PenguinRandomHouse).