Before It's Gone: Archive to Survive - Book Launch and Panel Discussion

A panel discussion and book launch with the Brooklyn Hi-Art! Machine on art, community, and preserving Black and Brown Brooklyn.
About this Event


Weeksville Heritage Center and the Brooklyn Hi-Art! Machine (BHAM) invite you to a panel discussion and book launch for Before It's Gone: Archive to Survive.

Artists Oasa DuVerney and Mildred Beltré created the book, which gathers two years of narratives from longtime community members who live on one block in Crown Heights. Their stories, photographs, and artworks stand together as communal testimony to the lives lived on that block, preserved before they are erased and forgotten.

This afternoon centers on art and community engagement as strategies for preserving Black and Brown geographies in Brooklyn.

"Weeksville has always been a place of resistance and preservation of the past while looking to the future. The project of the Brooklyn Hi-Art! Machine has also always been about resistance; resistance to gentrification, resistance to being criminalized simply for existing and being out on the street, and resistance to erasure. Archive to Survive documents the lives lived and currently living on our one block in Crown Heights. We asked neighbors to tell us a story about living on the block. The stories recall neighbors and places no longer in the neighborhood. Together they recall tragedy, love, and laughter. We are excited to share our stories with the Weeksville community and beyond." - Oasa DuVerney and Mildred Beltré, co-creators, Brooklyn Hi-Art! Machine

Join us on Saturday, November 7, for an afternoon of stories, art, and conversation. Books will be available at the event, with an option for a book signing by the authors after the panel discussion.