For Pride Month, Nolisoli revisited queer spaces—past and present—through the stories of people who lived in and through them. There’s Malate with its dimmed but nonetheless still inclusive streets, Cubao that was once home to music hangout Today x Future, Makati with its artistic meccas XX XX and Pineapple Lab, Taguig with its buzzing nightlife fixture Nectar, Ortigas with the loud and proud home of the drag queens O Bar, and the transient spiritual hub that is Open Table Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) now in Mandaluyong.
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The renaissance that awaits
By Pineapple Lab executive director Jodinand Aguillon
Pineapple Lab was the first place here that made me feel truly at home. It was never about the specific venue, or a particular event, moreso the people it connected, the ideas that it inspired. While our physical spaces may have closed, we’re continually inspired by the innovative ways artists have managed to navigate the compounded challenges and we look forward to the renaissance that awaits us all.
We jokingly referred to our Fringe Festival as the annual gathering of Unicorns—which it was! It was also a time for us to collaborate with other safe spaces throughout the metro, a time for artists to be free, to feel included, and shed any feelings of doubt or self-critique that often hold so many of us back from taking that first step. A place where a first step or a work in progress can be celebrated and championed as though it were a masterpiece.