Brooklyn Public Library invites you to join The Public Critic, a free program where audiences become cultural critics and every voice has a chance to be published. Together, we’ll attend performances, films, concerts, and other cultural events across the city, then gather to write, share, and publish our own criticism.
How the Program Works
The Public Critic is a workshop series that will take place across three sessions.
- Each session will be led by a different cultural critic:
- Session 1: Niela Orr (beginning May 6)
- Session 2: Doreen St. Félix (beginning late May)
- Session 3: Vinson Cunningham (beginning late September)
- Participants attend a cultural event together (tickets will be provided by BPL).
- A week later, the group reconvenes at the Library for Arts & Culture with drafts of their reviews in hand, to share their writing out loud, exchange feedback, and refine their writing under the guidance of the lead critic.
- At the end of the season, participants’ final pieces will be compiled into a Library-published journal, available online and in-print at select branches.
Why It Matters
Cultural criticism is about thinking publicly, not telling the public what to think. By encouraging thoughtful and critical responses to the city’s cultural offerings, The Public Critic fosters independent voices, promotes active engagement with the arts, and centers the focus on strong, occasionally controversial, but always witty and inspiring cultural criticism beyond the confines of economic pressures and interests.
Everybody has opinions, but The Public Critic seeks to develop those personal opinions into public discourse. Opinions without discourse are an echo-chamber. Discourse without an opinion is just noise. Art only comes fully into focus when we recognize its meaning is something we construct together. This is why public discourse on the arts deserves to be taken seriously, and The Public Critic hopes to be a platform for serious engagement, open exchange, and the shared responsibility of shaping what art means for public life.
If you're interested in joining The Public Critic, please fill out the questionnaire below.
Spots are limited.
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
For more information, please email Amauta M. Firmino at afirmino@bklynlibrary.org
BPL Presents programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.