Collaborative Studio: Preview + Party!

Save the date! We’re back with our annual Preview in the Park, debuting a new collection of 7 short documentaries made by the talented artists in the UnionDocs Collaborative Studio (CoLAB).
This year’s films emerge from a shared research focus on sanitation, waste streams, discard culture, labor, and the hidden infrastructures that move material through and out of New York City every day.
Rooted on the border of Ridgewood and Bushwick, we have become increasingly aware of our proximity to sanitation garages, scrap yards, transfer stations, and industrial routes that are often overlooked but quietly shape the rhythms of the city at large, and offer this collection of films to bring these spaces and systems into focus.
From the workforces official and unofficial, like the 10,000+ New Yorkers who redeem recyclables for 5 cents on the can every day, to New York’s strongest— the city’s sanitation force, or the environmental saviors like the mussels in Newtown Creek that have filtered a century’s worth of pollution, the films look closely at the various forms of labor that sustain the city every day.
They also trace the sites of disposal and the methods of claiming and relinquishing ownership that take place across typical and not-so-typical sites of discard: a notorious plaza under the train that has become a hotspot for illegal dumping, weekly auction yards for cars picked up by the NYPD, and the thousands of estate sales that leave formerly beloved and now unwanted objects for the taking — or on a direct pathway to the infamous garbage truck hopper.
Together, these films explore sanitation not only as disposal, but as an ongoing civic system and choreography that reflects our values: what’s kept? what’s discarded? who decides? who benefits, or suffers? and who labors through these processes? And of course, what futures could shift if there was more attention paid to these questions?
Come through to watch these incredible new films under the stars and in community at Starr Playground on Onderdonk Ave.
Doors open at 7:30 PM and screenings begin at sunset, around 8:30 PM.
After the films, we’ll invite everyone back to UNDO to celebrate with drinks, music, and a festive chance to gather and toast the work of these amazing teams.
Stay tuned for the full lineup!