Community Brunch in Freedom Square
2026-08-30 11:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Freedom Square, 35 5th Ave, Troy, NY, 12180, United States
Join us at a long table at Freedom Square for free food in good company. Sharing food and getting to know your neighbors is such an important way to build a community, and Kitchen Sanctuary is inviting you to show up with a hunger for brunch and conversation. A campus tour will be offered in the last half hour.

Be The Media! workshop with Edward George
2026-09-02 17:00 - 18:00
as part of EMPAC’s TOPOS Festival

Join us to learn directly from Edward George, who has harnessed the power of media to examine and deconstruct the Black experience in its myriad forms from his early work as an independent media activist and founding member of UK’s Black Audio Film Collective, to his multi-part radio broadcast The Strangeness of Dub, to his own performance practice in electronic music groups such as Hallucinator.

REGISTER HERE

*This event is included in the TOPOS Festival Pass

Edward George will discuss the trajectory of his work, the reasons he has used different modes of media for certain projects, and how the subjects that he explores breathe life into social histories and make complex theory accessible to wider audiences. The workshop precedes George’s screening of Black Atlas, an experimental reimagining of archival materials which ultimately reveals how art is a tactical tool that can be used to dismantle systems of power.This event is a collaboration with EMPAC & iEar Presents!

Edward George- writer, broadcaster, and founder of Black Audio Film Collective (1982-1998), the multimedia duo Flow Motion (1996-present), and the electronic music group Hallucinator (1998-present). Geo rge wrote and presented the ground-breaking science fiction documentary Last Angel of History (1996), and he hosts Sound of Music (Threads Radio), Kuduro – Electronic Music of Angola (Counterflows). George’s series The Strangeness of Dub (Morley Radio) dives into reggae, dub, versions and versioning, drawing on critical theory, social history, and a deep, wide cross-genre musical selection.

7pm: “Black Atlas” Screening with Edward George & Fred Moten

“Black Atlas” Screening with Edward George & Fred Moten
2026-09-02 19:00 - 21:00
as part of EMPAC’s TOPOS Festival

Join Black Audio Film Collective founding member Edward George for a screening of Black Atlas which explores the “Image of the Black” archive—a collection of over 30,000 images documenting representations of people of African descent from antiquity through the civil rights era. After the screening, George will be joined in conversation with Fred Moten, a Black Culture Studies professor at NYU Tisch. This event is a collaboration with EMPAC & iEar Presents!

REGISTER HERE

*This event is included in the TOPOS Festival Pass

Commissioned by The Warburg Institute in London, filmmaker, writer, broadcaster, and musician Edward George’s Black Atlas explores the “Image of the Black” archive—a collection of over 30,000 images documenting representations of people of African descent from antiquity through the civil rights era. The American premiere of Black Atlas is presented in partnership with The Sanctuary for Independent Media (Troy, NY) and RPI Arts Department’s iEAR Presents! Drawing from the archive, George creates a new film that reanimates historical imagery through narration, sound, and montage. Accompanied by an evocative score by Seymour Wright and Crystabel Efemena Riley, Black Atlas unfolds as a meditation on time, place, and presence— considering art as a medium of transcendence, a technology of power, and an affirmation of a humanist, anti-racist project.

5pm: Be The Media! workshop with Edward George

Guest Bios:

Edward George- writer, broadcaster, and founder of Black Audio Film Collective (1982-1998), the multimedia duo Flow Motion (1996-present), and the electronic music group Hallucinator (1998-present). George wrote and presented the ground-breaking science fiction documentary Last Angel of History (1996), and he hosts Sound of Music (Threads Radio), Kuduro – Electronic Music of Angola (Counterflows). George’s series The Strangeness of Dub (Morley Radio) dives into reggae, dub, versions and versioning, drawing on critical theory, social history, and a deep, wide cross-genre musical selection.

Fred Moten is a professor in the Departments of Performance Studies and Comparative Literature at New York University, where he teaches courses in black studies, poetics, and critical theory. He works with lots of social and aesthetic study groups including Stefano Harney & Fred Moten, the Black Arts Movement School Modality, Le Mardi Gras Listening Collective, the Center for Convivial Research and Autonomy, Moved by the Motion, the Institute of Physical Sociality and the Harris/Moten Quartet.

StoryHarvest with Arm-of-the-Sea Theater
2026-09-20 14:00 - 17:00 | Freedom Square, 35 5th Ave, Troy, NY, 12180, United States
Join us for StoryHarvest, our annual food justice celebration featuring activities, games, music, and food– all FREE! This year we are excited to bring Arm-of-the-Sea Theater back to Freedom Square with their performance ESTUARY TALES: The Life & Times of the Hudson River.

ESTUARY TALES: The Life & Times of the Hudson River will begin at 3pm. This performance spectacle fuses live music, movement and large-scale puppetry in a deep dive into the checkered history of “America’s River”. Giant sturgeon, eels and river otters ply the stage, alongside steamboats, fishermen, immigrants, and citizen scientists. With whimsy and ingenuity, the show reveals the Hudson River’s complex inner life and chronicles the long struggle to clean up the river.Designed to engage ages 5 to 95, this production is 1 hour in length and presented by a six-member cast.

Arm-of-the-Sea is an arts ensemble that fuses visual storytelling with live music in large-scale works of mask and puppet theater. Founded in 1982 by Marlena Marallo and Patrick Wadden, the company’s hybrid performance style channels the evocative power of the arts as a force for joy, insight, and community uplift. Their low-tech devices of theatrical enchantment illuminate relations between humans and the life-support networks of this blue-ocean planet. Learn more.

Stories of Palestine, in Reverence and in Grief
2026-10-02 19:00 - 21:00 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
Through storytelling, cooking, reading, and community, this gathering will honor the beauty of Palestinian past, present, and future, as we learn and mourn together.

…more info coming soon

Ethereal Egyptian Rhythms with Abu Zeyn
2026-10-09 19:00 - 21:00 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
Bass, clarinet, and vocal loops weave rhythmic tapestries of original Sufi and Ancient Egyptian spiritual compositions. …more info coming soon

Abu Zeyn أبو زين creates rhythmic tapestries by weaving live bass, clarinet and vocal loops with soulful improvisation. He is a child of the Nile River and the Arabian Desert. The date palm shaded and nourished his youth. His tongue was tuned to cardamom and tangerines. The salt of the Red Sea cured his infant skin and the sands of Alexandria baked his tender feet. His ears were raised on the sounds of braying donkeys, the call to prayer and tuktuk soundsystems.

"WTO/99" Film Screening on the Battle of Seattle
2026-10-16 19:00 - 21:00 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
Join us for a screening of the documentary film about the Battle of Seattle, where 50,000 activists hit the streets of Seattle, WA to block a major World Trade Organization conference, an event seen by many as setting the tone for mass mobilization movements at the start of the century. WTO/99 will be screened and followed by a Q&A with the film’s editor and producer Alex Megaro.

Register Here– Coming Soon

WTO/99 is an immersive archival documentary that depicts the four-day clash between the then-emerging World Trade Organization (WTO) and the 40,000+ people who took to the streets of Seattle in 1999 to protest the WTO Conference and the WTO’s impact on human rights, labor, and the future effects of continued globalization. https://www.wto99doc.com/

Water Justice and Media Lab End of Season Celebration
2026-11-14 19:00 - 21:00 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
Celebration featuring youth-produced short film and presentations about the 2026 Water Justice and Media Lab Season. …more info coming soon

Judith Enck on Plastics and Creating Legislation
2026-11-19 19:00 - 21:00 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
Join us for a book talk and conversation around plastics and how to push legislation with environmental policy expert Judith Enck. After presenting on her book The Problem with Plastic: How We Can Save Ourselves and Our Planet Before It’s Too Late, which investigates plastic innovation which has created devastating environmental and public health impacts, Enck will be joined by Shaunty M of Golden Leaf Books to talk about how to make a bill into law. Enck’s organization Beyond Plastics works on a slew of legislation to reduce the plastic in our environment, while Shaunty has experience pushing electric vehicle legislation.

Register Here… Coming Soon

Golden Leaf Books will supply books for sale.

What if we said that the line between societal advancement and environmental degradation is as thin as a layer of plastic wrap? Once a marvel of modern science, plastic has become so inextricably woven into our lives that imagining a world without can seem impossible. Over the last 75 years, plastic has cradled our planet in a synthetic embrace.

“The Problem with Plastic” critically examines the paradox of this material, first celebrated for its innovations and now recognized for its devastating environmental and public health impacts. This compelling narrative reveals how plastic pollution contributes to poisoned oceans, polluted air, a warming planet, and overwhelming waste, particularly affecting marginalized communities, which bear the brunt of petrochemical pollution. The book highlights the pervasive presence of microplastics in the environment and the human body, challenging the belief that recycling can solve the crisis.

In addition to uncovering environmental racism and debunking industry claims, “The Problem with Plastic” emphasizes the urgent need for action against plastic’s toxic legacy, and offers readers practical, actionable solutions, including a “household waste audit,” which empowers readers to track and reduce their own plastic consumption.
