Library for Arts and Culture

THIS THURSDAY! This panel explores how public space in Brooklyn is shaped not only through design, but also through policy, community advocacy, and the forces that determine who a space is truly made for. From parks and waterfronts to sidewalks and under-elevated corridors, Brooklyn’s shared spaces are continually contested and transformed. The conversation brings together planners, designers, and advocates to ask what it really means to design for belonging.

https://www.bklynlibrary.org/calendar/public-brooklyn-now-how-library-for-arts-culture-20260423-0630pm

WEDNESDAY! Come with your work in progress (WIP) and gain new, equally trusted eyes. This program offers a consistent space for constructive reflection, shared inquiry, and the objectivity we often seek, but struggle to find, within our own creative support systems. All mediums welcome.

Together, we practice looking with care: holding works in process without urgency, comparison, or premature resolution. Through attentive feedback and collective presence, artists are supported in staying with their questions, experiments, and unfolding directions.

We look forward to creating meaningful opportunities for artists to land softly in their process, progress, and practice, returning to their WIP with renewed clarity, confidence, and momentum.

RSVP: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/calendar/work-progress-wednesday-library-for-arts-culture-20260422-0630pm

COMING SOON! In her field-defining essay, “The Ceremony Must Be Found: After Humanism,” Jamaican writer, philosopher, and playwright Sylvia Wynter argued black studies needs to find a ceremony marking our commitment to radical intellectual and creative struggle against (the) Man. In an attempt to cultivate such a momentous event, The Ceremony+Meditations on Voodoo brings together writers and creative practitioners to offer notes inspired by D’Angelo’s genre-defying and spiritually-charged sonic incantation, Voodoo. Faith Pennick, Fatima Jamal, Brys Peralta, MIMZ, and nappymetafysics+ will be offering written pieces, musical performances, and short films that meditate on the significance of Voodoo in our contemporary period of darkness as we approach thirty years since its initial release. What has yet to be said about Voodoo and, by extension, D’Angelo’s living practice as a conjure man who offers an imperfect yet honest blueprint for traversing an uncertain future? Jamal, Pennick, Peralta, MIMZ, and nappymetafysics+ will delve into these questions as they relate to identity, spirituality, gender, musical genre, creative invention, destiny, southernness, and more. We hope you will join us as we celebrate and reimagine the artistic practice of a cultural visionary on the precipice of the Aquarian Age, a time of radical collaboration, social tumult, and upheaval. Following the ceremony, Pennick will be signing purchased copies of her award-winning 33 ⅓ book “D’Angelo’s Voodoo” at the Greenlight Bookstore Table.

RSVP Here: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/calendar/ceremonymeditations-library-for-arts-culture-20260508-0630pm

This panel explores how public space in Brooklyn is shaped not only through design, but also through policy, community advocacy, and the forces that determine who a space is truly made for. From parks and waterfronts to sidewalks and under-elevated corridors, Brooklyn’s shared spaces are continually contested and transformed. The conversation brings together planners, designers, and advocates to ask what it really means to design for belonging.

RSVP Here: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/calendar/public-brooklyn-now-how-library-for-arts-culture-20260423-0630pm

On the evening of April 27th, artist, Nikki Kramer will be holding a writing prompt forum. The theme of this event will be, Cycles: Things we hold onto, and things we let go. In this space, there will be a provided sequence of writing prompts, you may answer these prompts in whichever form of writing you desire; a poem, a fictional story, a play, a journal entry, etc. You will have an allocated amount of time to answer the prompts, then we will share and discuss.

You are not obligated to share, but this will be a safe and supported space where your writing will not be judged. If you have a notebook or paper and a writing utensil, please bring these items with you, if not, we will have supplies provided.

RSVP Here: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/calendar/writing-prompt-forum-library-for-arts-culture-20260427-0630pm

NEXT WEEK! Come with your work in progress (WIP) and gain new, equally trusted eyes. This program offers a consistent space for constructive reflection, shared inquiry, and the objectivity we often seek, but struggle to find, within our own creative support systems. All mediums welcome.

Together, we practice looking with care: holding works in process without urgency, comparison, or premature resolution. Through attentive feedback and collective presence, artists are supported in staying with their questions, experiments, and unfolding directions.

We look forward to creating meaningful opportunities for artists to land softly in their process, progress, and practice, returning to their WIP with renewed clarity, confidence, and momentum.

RSVP: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/calendar/work-progress-wednesday-library-for-arts-culture-20260422-0630pm

TONIGHT! Join us for a collaborative visioning session focused on designing for the future and shaping public possibilities. Together, we will imagine what our civic and educational spaces might look like 10–15 years from now. The session will explore how emerging ideas, hopeful design characteristics, and community-centered innovations can evolve into tangible futures. This interactive workshop invites participants to co-create forward-looking concepts, experiment with future-thinking tools, and help chart pathways toward meaningful, community-driven design.

RSVP Here: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/calendar/futures-brooklyn-now-library-for-arts-culture-20260413-0630pm

THIS WEEKEND! MYCO: Metamorphosis reflects an evolution of our present local movement to one that is intergenerational, cooperative, and encompassing of an ever-evolving city, community, and ongoing climate crisis. We represent the resilience of mycelial networks, embodying NYC's environmental justice movement through art, advocacy, green economy workforce development, and entrepreneurship.

This one-day experience champions intersectional explorations of the climate and environmental justice movement at the nexus of policy, economic development, and the green job economy, as well as racial, gender, migrant, and q***r liberation.

Panel 1 - 3:30p-4:15 MULES AND MONSTERAS: RADICALLY SALVAGING IN THE CLIMATE SPACE, A Black Girl Environmentalist Climate Storytelling Panel

Zora Neale Hurston’s Mules and Men solidified her as an anthropologist and ethnographer. But she is an environmentalist, being the pioneer of “salvage ethnography”. In literary and narrative fashion, this panel opens up dialogue on creative storytelling and preserving climate and cultural histories.

Panel 2 - 4:30-5:15p: Climate Compass: Traversing and Summiting the Climate + Sustainability Job Economy Landscape

Now more than ever, students and young professionals face a challenging job market and economy, plus political, social, and relational ambiguity. We know keeping our footing in purpose and figuring out a career path can be difficult right now. We explore aspects of career prospects and intentional planning in the Climate and Environment industry with local leaders building the future of the green economy locally and beyond.

Panel 3 - 5:30-6:15p: Collective Dreaming-Dreams of Sweetgrass: Weaving our Collective Future as Afro-Indigenous Climate Stewards

Black and Indigenous communities are enmeshed with climate and environmental stewardship practices while also facing the first and greatest impacts when climate events and devastation take place. Listen in as we discuss how practice, collaboration, and cultural interconnectedness inform a greater environmental vision across public, private, and grassroots cooperation.

For more information: https://discover.bklynlibrary.org/?event=true&search=MYCO&pinned=checke

Join us next Monday, April 13, for another installment of Futures Brooklyn NOW.

This session will explore how emerging ideas, hopeful design practices, and community-centered innovations can evolve into tangible futures. Come be part of the conversation and imagine what’s possible together.

Please RSVP!

Futures Brooklyn NOW: Public Storytelling and Creative Placemaking | Brooklyn Public Library Join us for a collaborative visioning session focused on designing for the future and shaping public possibilities. Together, we will imagine what our civic and educational spaces might look like 10–15 years from now. The session will explore how emerging ideas, hopeful design characteristics, and...

COMING SOON! Come with your work in progress (WIP) and gain new, equally trusted eyes. This program offers a consistent space for constructive reflection, shared inquiry, and the objectivity we often seek, but struggle to find, within our own creative support systems. All mediums welcome.

Together, we practice looking with care: holding works in process without urgency, comparison, or premature resolution. Through attentive feedback and collective presence, artists are supported in staying with their questions, experiments, and unfolding directions.

We look forward to creating meaningful opportunities for artists to land softly in their process, progress, and practice, returning to their WIP with renewed clarity, confidence, and momentum.

RSVP: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/calendar/work-progress-wednesday-library-for-arts-culture-20260422-0630pm

THIS WEEK! Housing Brooklyn NOW: Design, Advocacy, and Community Voices. As New York City faces long-term underinvestment in public housing and growing affordability challenges, this session brings together architects, community organizations, and housing advocates to explore how design, policy, and community voice intersect. Drawing from current projects and approaches, the discussion will examine how collaboration can translate resident priorities into more equitable housing outcomes. Through an interactive component, participants will engage in hands-on, community-centered activities that surface shared values and collective ideas for the future of public housing.

RSVP: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/calendar/housing-brooklyn-now-library-for-arts-culture-20260409-0630pm

Come by and check out a new display for Arab Heritage Month!!!