Home on Fire: Vivian Vazquez Irizarry ‘s 'Decade of Fire' film screening and discussion with Dr. Mark Anthony Neal (Virtual Event)

Home on Fire: Vivian Vazquez Irizarry's Decade of Fire film screening and discussion with Dr. Mark Anthony Neal

In the 1970s, the Bronx was on fire. Abandoned by city government, nearly a half-million people were displaced as their close-knit, multi-ethnic neighborhood burned, reducing the community to rubble. While insidious government policies caused the devastation, Black and Puerto Rican residents bore the blame. In Decade of Fire, Bronx-born Vivian Vázquez Irizarry exposes the truth about the borough’s untold history and reveals how her embattled and maligned community chose to resist, remain and rebuild their HOME.

Vázquez Irizarry will be joined by Dr. Mark Anthony Neal, fellow South Bronx native and James B. Duke Professor of African & African-American Studies and Professor of English, at Duke University.

This event is part of our year-long exploration on the theme of "Home, What does it look like now?" How can we reconsider home in the 21st century as we cross states and borders seeking comfort, safety and identity? Against the backdrop of a global pandemic and state sanctioned violence against black bodies, the Center for Black Visual Culture (CBVC) will explore the significant ways black visual narratives respond to the cultural, dynamic political, social, economic as well intimate changes that force us to (re)interrogate previous conceptions of home.

Cosponsored by the 370J Project and the Center for Media, Culture, and History, NYU; and the Department of Photography & Imaging, NYU Tisch School of the Arts.