Cultural Heritage
Brooklyn’s evolving cultural heritage is documented and preserved in our Cultural Heritage Archive. Traditional, ethnic, and diaspora arts express and preserve cultural custom, history, memory, and identity.
Physical Archive
A Collection Spanning Over 30 years
Our physical Cultural Heritage Archive is currently being stored at the Center for Brooklyn History (CBH) in partnership with the Brooklyn Public Library.
The collection includes materials produced from 1986-2013, created to celebrate, document, and educate the public about folk arts traditions in Brooklyn through song and dance performances, craft demonstrations, film screenings, and art exhibits. Program files include event planning materials, promotional items, budget information, research materials, and artist files. The collection includes extensive audiovisual documentation of events, artist submissions, and oral history interviews. Items dated 1900-1985 collected for submissions and research are also included.
A guide to BAC’s Cultural Heritage Archive can be found here. This collection is stored offsite and at least two weeks advance notice is required. Please contact cbhreference@bklynlibrary.org prior to your visit.
Digital Photo & Video Archive
The online Cultural Heritage Archive (2003 – present) provides a record of BAC’s past projects, including video clips, photos, artist bios, event calendars, and program PDFs. Included are Williamsburg Bridge 100, Folk Feet, Brooklyn Maqam, Days of the Dead in Brooklyn, Once Upon a Time in Brooklyn, Black Brooklyn Renaissance, and Half the Sky Festival.
The Black Brooklyn Renaissance Digital Archive
The Black Brooklyn Renaissance Digital Archive (73 CDs and DVDs) documents over 30 concerts, performances, exhibitions, screenings, lectures, workshops and other public programs that brought to light and celebrated how Black artists have contributed to Brooklyn's significance as a center of Black culture in New York since 1960. An accompanying oral history project recorded interviews with over 80 Brooklyn artists, community leaders, and other people who have played influential roles in Brooklyn’s African-Diasporic cultural community over the last 50 years.