TCB – the Toni Cade Bambara School of Organizing Film Screening Join the Center for Black Visual Culture as welcome filmmaker Louis Massiah for a screening a conversation on TCB - The Toni Cade Bambara School of Organizing. This program is co-sponsored by Center for the Study of Africa and the African Diaspora and NYU Arts & Science Department of English.TCB - The Toni Cade Bambara School of Organizing (2025, 105 minutes) is a biography of the influential writer, filmmaker and cultural worker, who with humor and deep insight, inspired a generation of artists to dedicate themselves to community empowerment. The film is structured as a series of lessons on cultural organizing, gleaned from Bambara’s life and shared by her friends, colleagues and students. Toni Cade Bambara (1939–1995) was a writer, documentary filmmaker, and activist whose groundbreaking works, including The Black Woman (1970), Gorilla, My Love (1972), and The S...

#IWonderU40 Prince Symposium Join us on April 17–19, 2026 (Friday–Sunday) for #IWonderU40, a *HYBRID* Prince symposium. This is a very special one this year, commemorating two landmark anniversaries: ten years since Prince's passing and forty years since his visionary 1986 releases, the Parade album and his second narrative film Under the Cherry Moon. Save the dates and pre-register now at https://iwonderu40.substack.com. The speaker and schedule at a glance are on the symposium website,  https://iwonderu.polishedsolid.com. This will be our first hybrid symposium, designed to support both our international and local community. Friday • Fully virtual on Zoom Events + YouTube to accommodate our global audience. Saturday and Sunday • In person at NYU Tandon in Brooklyn at 370 Jay St., where we previously celebrated #EroticCity40. The in-person sessions will be livestreamed and posted later on YouTube and/or Vimeo. MASSIVE THANKS t...

Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America The Center for Black Visual Culture and the Asian Pacific American Institute welcome author Jeff Chang and cultural critic Bakari Kitwana to discuss Chang’s new publication Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America. This conversation will be followed by a book signing, where copies will be available for purchase.As the best-known martial artist and one of the most celebrated action stars ever, Bruce Lee is a global icon. He symbolizes swagger, strength, and the unbeatable spirit of the underdog. But in more than fifty years since his untimely death at age thirty-two, the legend has eclipsed the real man. During his lifetime, Bruce fought to be seen—from Hong Kong to Hollywood, Asian tenements to American ghettos, the lonely garret to the international screen. He emerged as a star in an era when Asian Americans were fighting against exclusion and invisib...

Hand Book: A Manual on Performance, Process, and the Labor of Laundry A book launch for Hand Book: A Manual on Performance, Process, and the Labor of Laundry (2025, Punctum) + film, The Washing Society (45 min) A book launch for Hand Book: A Manual on Performance, Process, and the Labor of Laundry (2025, Punctum Books) is a collection of writings and images from a performance and film set within a neighborhood laundromat, a microcosm of service work within our urban reality. With a focus on the people who are paid to wash and fold, Hand Book explores the convergence of dirt, stains, money, identity, and desire. Informed by both theory and history, filmmaker-poet Lynne Sachs and playwright Lizzie Olesker construct a model for making a site-specific work incorporating both live performance and film. A short performance by Jasmine Holloway and screening of the experimental film, The Washing Society (45 min), made in parallel with the book,...

Larry Cook and Dr. Nicole Fleetwood in Conversation The Center for Black Visual Culture, the Department of Social & Cultural Analysis, and Tilt Institute are pleased to present a public conversation with artist Larry W. Cook and scholar and curator Dr. Nicole R. Fleetwood, focusing on contemporary photographic practices among system-impacted artists on January 30 from 6:00 - 8:00 in Flex Space (4th Floor of 20 Cooper Square, New York, NY) Cook and Fleetwood will discuss how system-impacted photographers are generating new image cultures that exceed the limits of criminal index/surveillance strategies and their aesthetics: experimenting with self-representation, collaborating across distance and time, building personal and collective archives, and creating new visual languages of representation, refusal, and futurity. Together, they will reflect on how photography becomes a medium not only for survival and testimony, but also for re-...