Live from the Newsdesk of 2044: Hope and Historias

Presented in partnership with The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center and The Shape of Cities to Come Institute, and Urban Omnibus.

With support from the Puffin Foundation.

With so much hanging in the balance this midterm election, we invite you to an immersive gathering inside the memories and visions of New York City.

New York 2044 is a speculative newspaper from about 20 years in the future, reporting from the imaginations of deeply committed New Yorkers. Presented live on stage, artist Noah Fischer hosts the NY2044 Newsdesk, inviting guests to bring poignant Memorias from the past, alongside correspondents who offer vivid visions and scenarios of a thriving future city. The second half of the evening is interactive — an opportunity, in this anxious moment, to report from each other’s imaginations, and workshop possible futures together. The show includes musicians and video projections, and is co-presented with Urban Omnibus magazine, which is publishing part of the current NY2044 issue.

The news blares apocalyptic stories each day: Whether the end of democracy or the end of humanity itself, the most dystopian movies and books seems to have leaked into reality. But in New York city, there’s something else emerging. Hope not just produced by our powerful social movements, but in the possibility that our civic systems can address the city’s vast disparities. There’s a dawning realization that we who inhabit this place need each other, and we need the city to work for all of us.

New York 2044 reports from the imaginations of New Yorkers who are part of this undertaking to build a better future. It begins with the belief that we can’t organize around the apocalypse— hope for a working future must be our connective principle. But where will this better future come from? Not from the stolen knowledge mixed into slop and sold back to us as god-like genius. No, it comes from Historias of each person’s individual and community struggle, block by block, borough by borough.

And yet, the stakes of each election are rising like floodwaters. As we face this upcoming midterm election with a mixture of anxiety and hope, we invite you to join a live studio audience of the New York 2044 newsdesk, where we time travel back to some of the city’s richest memories, and forward to reported details of what the city can and must be.

www.ny2044.com