The Cities We Need
Thu, Sep 19, 2024
6:30 PM–8:00 PM
Elebash Recital Hall, CUNY Graduate Center
365 5th Ave, NYC.
Free and open to all. Registration required.
Join us for a conversation with photographer and urbanist Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani and interdisciplinary scholar Judy Pryor-Ramirez exploring the themes of Bendiner-Viani’s new book The Cities We Need, which reveals through photographs and stories how everyday places can be the spaces of liberation in which we can build the cities we need. The conversation will be moderated by author and historian Prithi Kanakamedala.
Where would you take someone on a guided tour of your neighborhood? In The Cities We Need: Essential Stories of Everyday Places, photographer and urbanist Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani introduces us to the complex, political, and eminently personable stories of residents who answered this question in Brooklyn, New York, and Oakland, California. Their universal stories and Bendiner-Viani’s evocative images illuminate what’s at stake in our everyday places—from diners to churches to donut shops. In this culmination of two decades of research and art practice, Bendiner-Viani intertwines the personal, historical, and photographic to present us with placework, the way that unassuming places foster a sense of belonging and, in fact, do the essential work of helping us become communities.
In this unique book, Bendiner-Viani makes visible how seemingly unimportant places can lay the foundation for a functional interconnected society, so necessary for both public health and social justice. The Cities We Need explores both what we gain in these spaces and what we risk losing as they are threatened by gentrification, large-scale development, and most recently the COVID-19 pandemic. Ultimately, Bendiner-Viani shows us how to understand ourselves as part of a shared society, with a shared fate; she shows us that everyday places can be the spaces of liberation in which we can build the cities we need.
This event is free and open to all. The author will sign books after the event and copies of The Cities We Need will be available in-person from our partner bookseller Astoria Bookshop. Please register to attend.
Photos from The Cities We Need: Essential Stories of Everyday Places.
This event is co-sponsored by The Public Scholarship Practice Space (PS2) and the Center for the Humanities at the CUNY Graduate Center, and MIT Press.
Participants
