Closing Reception & Solstice Celebration – 465 Collective

CLOSING RECEPTION: Midori's Dining Room & Solstice Celebration by Queerly Complex + Comrades

 

ABOUT THE CLOSING RECEPTION

 

This is your LAST CHANCE to experience Midori’s Dining Room.

 

PLUS! Join the POTLUCK! Bring a dish or beverage to share. Or just show up. There will be food, refreshments, merriment, and a a Solstice Celebration to carry us through the longest night to come.

 

ABOUT SOLSTICE CELEBRATION by QUEERLY COMPLEX & COMRADES

 

 

 

A decade ago Midori & Jason Wyman met as performers at The News: Fresh Queer Performance hosted, produced, & curated by Kolmel withLove at SOMArts Cultural Center. This Winter Solstice, we’re reviving a similar format with Artists from the Queerly Complex Cosmos (some of whom were event part of The News too!) for the CLOSING RECEPTION of Midori’s Dining Room.

 

Each performer / performance group has up to 10 minutes to present fresh, new performance in a style / medium of their choosing. There’s one speaker and one mic. Performers can invite the audience to move or reorient their bodies within the space to best accommodate their performance. The aim is to provide a simple set of rigid conditions that creates space for experimentation. Who knows what magic will be conjured! 

 

Event Starts: 5pm

Performance Begins: 6:30pm

Performance Concludes: 8:30pm

Event Ends: 9:00pm

 

Performers include:

  • Crystal Mason

  • Sindhu Natarajan & SJ Cook

  • Derik Cowan

  • Taneesh Kaur

• • •
WHEN

Friday, Dec 19, 2025
5:00 – 9:00 pm 

 

Exhibit Dates

December 5-20

 
WHERE

465 Collective
465 South Van Ness
San Francisco, CA USA 

 
Dining Room, is a participatory installation that explores intergenerational, familial, and cultural trauma through symbolic action and community engagement. I invite participants to take part in a Shatter Party, a facilitated event in which ceramic dishes are broken, one by one, as an act of emotional release. These fragments—each a material trace of pain, grief, rage, or catharsis—are then gathered by me and used to construct the centerpiece of the final installation: a stylized domestic dining room, where the carpet is composed entirely of broken dishes, and the table is set with white plates long ago cracked and imperfectly repaired.

Casually viewed, the Dining Room appears unremarkable—a diorama of domesticity. But closer inspection reveals the underlying fractures. The viewer peers through a suspended window and sees herself reflected in a vintage mirror across the table, placing her inside the scene. This is not just one family’s table—it’s everyone’s.
What we share across backgrounds, cultures, and identities are the quiet wounds carried from our families of origin. For many of us, the dining table—an object associated with connection—is a site of pain, silence, and pressure. In today’s world, as we all carry the weight of daily overwhelm, social fragmentation, and collective grief, we’re expected to hold it together. But many of us feel like we’re going to shatter.

We are living through a time of profound social and political upheaval in the United States—a period marked by uncertainty, fear, and systemic breakdown. This project is my response. I want to offer a space where people can come together in their fragility—not to be fixed, but to be seen. Where we can rage, grieve, and release alongside others. Where we can access support and community. And where, from the fragments of our individual experiences, we build something shared.

This project is not about resolution. It’s about recognition. It’s about honoring the emotional truth we carry, and inviting moments of connection and compassion through visceral, creative acts. That’s my vision—and why I’m making this work now.

Support Midori’s new work
“Dining Room”
with a tax-deductible donation!

ACCESSIBILITY

 

465 Collective Space has limited accessibility, and accommodations can be made to ensure those with limited mobility or mobility devices can easily enter the space. A portable ramp will be available for this event. The bathroom currently has a door that opens inward and a small step down. This makes accessibility difficult.

Date
Dec 19 2025
Expired!
Time
5:00 PM - 9:00 PM
More Info
More Info
Location
465 Collective
465 South Van Ness, San Francisco, CA
Website https://www.queerlycomplex.com/465-collective
Category
Organizer
465 Collective
Website https://www.queerlycomplex.com/465-collective

The 465 Collective is a coalition of Bay Area artists based around the cooperatively run space 465 South Van Ness. Run by Collective members Madison Young, Beth Stephens, Maria Judice, Scott Sessions, Ginger Yifan Chen, and Jason Wyman.

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