FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Elisa Smilovitz / 551.486.3273 / [email protected]
James Michael Nichols, BRIC / 718.683.5980 / [email protected]
New Season of Brooklyn, USA, BRIC’s Audiovisual Magazine for the Searching, Launches in November
Brooklyn, USA Season 7 will take an in-depth look at “work” and the history and future of labor in Brooklyn and New York City. Each episode will approach the subject of “work” from a different angle.
(BROOKLYN, NY — November 2, 2022) — BRIC, a leading, multi-disciplinary arts and media institution anchored in downtown Brooklyn, is pleased to announce season seven of Brooklyn, USA, will launch on November 9, 2022. Presented as an audio podcast, a web page, and a YouTube video playlist, Brooklyn, USA is a curated, non-fiction digital series that delivers a thematic mix of short documentaries, local journalism, personal narratives, sound art, poetry, and audiovisual experimentation. This season will take an in-depth look at “work” and the history and future of labor in Brooklyn and New York City from different angles. Interviews this season will range from historians, sociologists, artists, activists, unionizing workers, co-workers, and anti-work movement builders to understand how “what we do” does and doesn’t define us. Season highlights include conversations with members of the Starbucks union in Williamsburg; interviews with the Brooklyn Nets GC, a basketball video game league; a story from the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers group about gig economy workers in a futuristic, cyberpunk Brooklyn; voice memos and call-ins from working people all over Brooklyn.
Brooklyn, USA, presents New York stories told by the people who live them and covers issues that impact our community in its own voice. Each episode combines interviews with experts and voice memos from community members and invited guests. Each week on Wednesdays, from November 9, 2022, through December 14, 2022, a new episode will launch on BRIC’s website, Spotify, iTunes, and other major platforms. You can view a trailer for season seven here.
Emily Boghossian, Senior Producer, BRIC Radio said:
“Brooklyn, USA aims to present an authentic picture of who, what, and where Brooklyn is — sharing and incubating new work by artists and media-makers who reflect the diversity that surrounds us. Sometimes we think of the show as a time capsule, other times we think of it as a portal to future or parallel Brooklyns. This season, senior producer Shirin Barghi came up with the idea to explore how Brooklynites are thinking about and experiencing work three years into a life-restructuring pandemic. For the series, we reached out to historians, sociologists, artists, activists, workers, and, as always, we asked the community to call in.”
SEASON 7 SCHEDULE
Episode #61 WORK & HISTORY
Air Date: November 9, 2022
Description: This season, we are taking an in-depth look at “work” and the history and future of labor in Brooklyn. To kick off our series, we spoke with Dr. Joshua Freeman, CUNY professor and author of Working-Class New York: Life and Labor Since World War II; Celeste Headlee, NPR journalist and author of Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving; and other historians and journalists who are thinking about the changing role of “work” in our world.
Guest: Celeste Headlee (Journalist and Author) and Josh Freeman (Historian and Author)
Episode #62 WORK & ART
Air Date: November 16, 2022
Description: Labor is a meaty subject for artists. Art can be a way to call out and process social issues like class stratification and unfair labor practices. Art is also a collaborative form of labor that props up some workers and devalues others. This week, we’re taking a long, hard look at two works of art: Rodrigo Valenzuela: New Works for a Post Worker’s World, an exhibition on view at BRIC House through 10/23, and 7 MINUTES, a play from Waterwell that had its U.S. premiere at HERE Arts Center last spring.
Guests: Rodrigo Venezuela (artist), Mei Ann Teo (Director, 7 MINUTES), Ebony Marshall-Oliver (Actress, 7 MINUTES), Sarah Hughes (Labor Notes Organizer, 7 MINUTES)
Episode #63 WORK & ACTIVISM
Air Date: November 23, 2022
Description: Uprisings don’t happen overnight. Labor movements are seeded, and it takes time for them to grow. This week, we’re honing in on a neighborhood in bloom. Recently, workers at Trader Joe’s and Starbucks have organized Williamsburg storefronts. Producer Melanie Kruvelis spoke with local workers, elected officials, volunteers, and community members to learn how Williamsburg residents are linking up to support this moment of worker organizing.
Guests: Emily Gallagher (NYS Assemblymember 50th District), Eric Dimbach (EWOC), Wen Zhuang (EWOC), C.J. Toothman (Starbucks barista), Ari Ayala (Starbucks barista)
Episode #64 WORK & PLAY
Air Date: November 30, 2022
Description: They say “love your job, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” This week, we meet a couple of fortunate ones who have turned a pastime passion into a career as members of the Brooklyn Nets GC, a basketball video game league, and reflect on what it means to work when working is playing. Also, we hear from the woman behind CoExist Gaming, a hub for professional gamers in NYC.
Guest: Alexander Bernstein (Nets Gaming Crew), Ivan Curtiss AKA OG King Curt (Nets Gaming Crew)
Episode #65 WORK & THE FUTURE
Air Date: December 7, 2022
Description: What does the future hold for workers? This week, we’re imagining the utopian and dystopian futures of work. First, we discuss the pros and the cons of a new New York City bill that proposes a four-day workweek. Next, the Kaleidocast podcast opens a portal to cyberpunk-fantasy Brooklyn via a piece of flash fiction by Jose Delagdo.
Guests: Ken Burgos (Assemblyman D-Bronx), Alex Soojung-Kim Pang (Global Programs Director of 4 Day Week Global), Alisha Bhagat (futurist), The Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers
Episode #66 WORKING TOGETHER
Air Date: December 14, 2022
Description: Worker coops seek to make labor relations less exploitative by giving all workers ownership in the company. In Sunset Park, an organization called the Center for Family Life (CFL) helps immigrant day laborers form and run coops, which leads to workers having a bigger share in profits, and more control over working conditions. We also hear voice memos from a food distribution coop in Bed-Stuy, a local activist who started the first coop for drivers in NYC, and an online coop for sex workers.
Guests: Amalia de la Iglesia (Center for Family Life), Brooklyn Packers
ABOUT BROOKLYN, USA
Brooklyn, USA is a monthly audiovisual magazine for the searching. Each issue features an eclectic mix of stories, essays, audio drama, and short fiction about the past, present, and future of a borough that’s always changing. Brooklyn, USA is the home for all things seen, heard, felt, and experienced on Brooklyn’s streets, and in its farthest corners, which make the borough so brilliant, varied, and unique.
ABOUT BRIC
BRIC is a leading arts and media institution anchored in Downtown Brooklyn whose work spans contemporary visual and performing arts, media, and civic action. For over forty years, BRIC has shaped Brooklyn’s cultural and media landscape by presenting and incubating artists, creators, students, and media makers. As a creative catalyst for our community, we ignite learning in people of all ages and centralize diverse voices that take risks and drive culture forward. BRIC is building Brooklyn’s creative future. Learn more at bricartsmedia.org.
