Night of Ideas // 6:00pm-1:00am

Friday, March 1, 6pm-1am

Hudson County Community College

The image shows the phrase "Night of Ideas" over a waxing crescent moon. — Night of Ideas 2024

Centre Pompidou x Jersey City, Villa Albertine, and Hudson County Community College (HCCC), with the support of the City of Jersey City, present the Night of Ideas at HCCC. For the first time, this free and open-to-all event comes to Jersey City. Interactive, celebratory, and content-rich, the Night of Ideas invites thought leaders and the public to engage together around major global issues through a festival of debate, performances, readings, and more.

The program asks: how do we build and how do we live in cities today? Taking inspiration from Jersey City, the event will address urban growth and the future of cities with talks, installations, multimedia pop-ups, and workshops, prompting attendees to consider the impact of urban growth through lenses of inclusivity, sustainability, arts and culture, education, and food.

Alongside art and video installations, program highlights include a keynote from former Jersey City poet laureate Rashad Wright, a workshop with designer and educator Prem Krishnamurthy on how art and design can help develop a more equitable, diverse, and joyous world; a round-table discussion investigating the in-between spaces created by infrastructure, moderated by Dense Magazine cofounder Petia Morozov and editor Andrew Harrison; performances by Jersey City-based dancer and choreographer Rimli Roy and her company, Surati; a visioning of the future of museums with the architect and leadership of Centre Pompidou Jersey City, with journalist and cultural strategist András Szántó; and two special tours: HCCC’s historic Foundation Art Collection led by HCCC Foundation Art Collection Coordinator Andrea Siegel, and the building site of Centre Pompidou x Jersey City.

Other participants include Senegalese academic, musician, and writer Felwine Sarr, publisher, curator, and Villa Albertine resident Lydia Amarouche, Ford Foundation Senior Program Officer Rocío Aranda-Alvarado, visual artist Oliver Beer, fiction editor at The New Yorker Deborah Treisman, HCCC professors Jeremiah Teipen and Eric Adamson, WFMU radio general manager Ken Freedman, writers Yiyun Li and Akhil Sharma, architecture curator and writer Beatrice Galilee, author Helene Stapinski, sociologists Sybille Gollac and Céline Bessière, Pulitzer Prize winner and Express Newark director Salamishah Tillet, and writer Tiana Webb Evans.

With over half of its participants either born, working, or residing in New Jersey, the program mirrors the vibrant community of the Garden State. Several collaborations with local organizations such as the Jersey City Free Public Library, Dense Magazine, Bike JC, and Sustainable JC further solidify the event's presence in the city.

Please, register here (free)

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