We are pleased to present in partnership with Oral History Summer School, Housing Narratives; a conversation about community development and housing with multidisciplinary artist Walis Johnson and community organizer Sarita Daftary-Steel on July 1, 2017 at 10 am in the library’s community room.
Walis Johnson will present The Red Line Archive, a mobile public art project that engages New York City residents in a conversation about race and the history of the 1938 Red Line Map that helped create the segregated urban landscapes of the city. This “cabinet of curiosities” is wheeled along city streets, inviting people to freely associate about personal artifacts and documents from the artist’s family history in gentrifying Brooklyn.
Sarita Daftary will present her oral history project on East New York, a project designed to capture the experiences of East New York residents who lived in the neighborhood during the period when families of color (African American, West Indian, and Puerto Rican) moved in and white families moved out, and the resulting decline of services and quality of life that followed.
Following brief presentations, the audience will have a chance to discuss housing-related issues in Hudson.
This event is free and open to the public and is wheelchair accessible. There will be a light breakfast of bagels and beverages.
Oral History Summer School is a cross-disciplinary training program to help students from varied fields make use of oral history as an ethical interview practice in their lives and work. This summer’s Oral History Summer School intensive includes a focus on housing narratives as part of a larger conversation about how oral history can be used as a tool to organize, humanize and visualize during crises including rapid development and gentrification.