To build ties to its neighbors, a young arts organization embarked on a sprawling multimedia project exploring the past and present of Williamsburg's Latino community.
Now famously gentrified, Williamsburg was once one of New York's most troubled districts. In 1984, filmmaker Diego Echeverria documented life in its predominantly Puerto Rican and Dominican community, capturing residents' ability to thrive in the midst of poverty and violence. UnionDocs, a young documentary arts center located in Williamsburg’s Southside, has spent the past few years restoring the film and building a sprawling multimedia project, Living Los Sures, around it.
"We understand ourselves as part of a location that has its own history and culture, and that we want to participate in that history and culture," UnionDocs founder Christopher Allen told Satellite. "So this gave us a way to make the organization not be a competition for that culture, but as a way to augment and celebrate and preserve and hopefully enrich what already existed in the neighborhood, rather than just ignoring it and creating exclusively our own thing—which is what happens with many art organizations."
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