Hope you can all join us for our exhibit opening next week

Thursday September 16, 5:30 – 7:30 at the Brooklyn Historical Society,

Painting Brooklyn Stories of Immigration & Survival

Curated by Nina Talbot, painter, in collaboration with Rachel Bernstein, public historian at New York University, the exhibition presents striking stories of Brooklyn residents through paintings, oral histories, poetry and personal effects. These different modes of expression offer multiple perspectives on the complex issues of how our immigrant pasts resonate in present day city life.

The exhibition tells the stories of diverse individuals sharing personal narratives about creating a new home in a new land and incorporating their cultural traditions into their New York lives. Their stories speak of hope and despair, embrace and discrimination.

Visitors to the exhibit meet a range of people, including an Iranian Jew with a jewelry shop in Newkirk Plaza; a Tuskegee Airman originally from the Caribbean whose mother worked as a servant for a family on Rugby Road; a phlebotomist from Dhaka, Bangladesh who lives in Midwood; a writer from Haiti with violent memories of the tonton macoute, now living peacefully in East Flatbush; a musician from Park Slope whose 96 year old mother remembers arriving in New York from Hangzhou, China in 1938; a Pakistani Muslim woman living in West Midwood; and a woman who survived the Mauthausen concentration camp now living in Borough Park.

The exhibition will be open at the Brooklyn Historical Society from Sept. 17, 2010 – Feb. 27, 2011.

A book of Talbot’s paintings with poetry by Esther Cohen, published by Pleasure Boat Studio will be available for sale at the reception and the BHS gift shop.

Brooklyn Historical Society
128 Pierrepont Street at Clinton Street
Brooklyn, New York 11201
Phone: 718-222-4111 Fax: 718-222-3794

Visit the Brooklyn Historical Society Website page. http://www.brooklynhistory.org/exhibitions/painting_brooklyn.html

click to view – NY Daily News: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2010/08/30/2010-08-30_chronicling_residents_unique_tales_of_the_city.html
Getting ready for multi-media exhibit @ the Brooklyn Historical Society, Talbot describes her process of meeting her Brooklyn portrait subjects, interviewing, and painting to reporter Elizabeth Lazarowitz.

click to view – City of Memory: http://www.cityofmemory.org/map/index.php#/tour/78/
City of Memory, a City Lore project, is an online story map. Talbot’s portrait of Ft. Greene community activist, Evelyn Loftin is featured with image and an oral history from the Weeksville Heritage Center.

Peter J. Wosh
Director, Archives/Public History Program
History Department
New York University
53 Washington Square South
Room 503
New York NY 10012
Phone: (212) 998-8601
Fax: (212) 995-4017
http://aphdigital.org
http://history.fas.nyu.edu/object/history.gradprog.archivespublichistory.html