City Lore Presents

Life Forgotten,
An Installation, Film & Book

Created by Zoe Beloff

On View from July 18, 2026 – September 13, 2026

City Lore Gallery

“New York’s Lower East Side has long been a destination for immigrants, first Jews from Eastern Europe, then Puerto Rican and Dominicans. As I walk through my neighborhood, I have long had a fantasy of being able to see through walls and windows, as though they were layers of archeological time. Life Forgotten is my attempt to bring not only images but fragments of life from a forgotten past into our world today.” Zoe Beloff, Artist & Filmmaker

New York, New York – City Lore is pleased to present Life Forgotten, by Zoe Beloff and on view at the City Lore Gallery from July 18th – September 13, 2026. City Lore Gallery is located at 56 East First Street, Manhattan. Gallery hours are: Saturday and Sunday, 12 noon until 6 pm and by appointment, 212-529-1955 ext. 22. There will be an opening reception on Saturday, July 18th from what time?

About Life Forgotten

Life Forgotten is a series of artworks, a film and a book that brings together the sewing machine and the showman and imagines the encounter between early cinema and young women labor activists of the Lower East Side in the early 20th Century. Situating archival footage in parallel with reenactment, the film centers on Frank Seiden’s storefront cinema at 58 Willett Street. Like many nickelodeons in the neighborhood, it was a welcoming space for women. The film follows a group of radical young garment workers led by the young Clara Leimlich who gather here to figure out how to fight for women’s rights and change their world. This work poses questions and offers a few signposts. How does everyday entertainment bring people together and act as a catalyst for social change? How does history grow out of and weigh upon lived experience? How can people without power or influence change their world?

About Zoe Beloff

Zoe is an artist, filmmaker, writer and rootless cosmopolitan based in New York. She aims to make art that both entertains and provokes discussion. With a focus on social justice, she draws timelines between past and present to imagine a more egalitarian future. Her projects often involve a range of media including films, drawings and archival documents organized around a theme. Many works also go out into the world as books.
A World Redrawn: Eisenstein and Brecht in Hollywood explored ideas for films proposed by never realized by radical artists; Sergei Eisenstein’s scenario Glass House, Bertolt Brecht’s A Model Family in a Model Home and asked how we might imagine them today. Life Forgotten is her most recent installation that focus on how working people come together to change their lives. Previous projects include, The Days of the Commune, a street performance and installation about the Paris Commune of 1871, and the exhibition, The Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalytic Society and their Circle 1926-1972.

Zoe’s work has been featured in international exhibitions and screenings; include the Whitney Museum Biennale, MoMA, the National Gallery in Washington D.C., the Pompidou Center in Paris, International Film Festival Rotterdam and FID Marseille. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard, the Graham Foundation and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. However, she particularly enjoys working in alternative venues that are free and open to the community for events and conversations. She is a professor at Queens College CUNY.

Public Programs at City Lore, 56 East First Street, Manhattan (July 19, August 2, August 22) FREE Admission

Sunday July 19, 6pm City Lore – Yiddish songs of the Bund and Beyond – Ira Khonen Temple and friends
Songs of solidarity and resistance powered the labor movement and social movements alike over the course of the 20th century. Many of these songs in Yiddish are accessible to us thanks to the efforts of musical activists and culture bearers, and once it’s unlocked they feel fresh and made for our times. Join Ira Khonen Temple, Eléonore Weill, Beila Ungar and Kirsten Lamb for a concert you can sing along to. With special guest Eve Sicular!

Sunday August 2, 6pm at City Lore – The Navigators – film by Noah Teichner
In 1919 the American government deports 249 anarchists and radicals on the “Soviet Ark” including Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. Five years later, this same ship becomes the decor of Buster Keaton’s slapstick comedy The Navigator. This remarkable coincidence was the starting point for a wildly original film by Noah Teichner.

Saturday August 22, 5pm at City Lore – Roundtable & Response to Here Where We Live is Our Country
This roundtable brings together scholars, Chelsea Haines and Gabriel Chazan and artist Zoe Beloff to discuss Molly Crabapple’s New York Times bestselling book Here Where We Live is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund. A sprawling account of the world of the General Jewish Labor Bund, Crabapple’s book has captured the attention of readers at a fraught moment when Jewish communities are looking to the past to reimagine new political futures. Our discussion will consider the book’s possible implications for thinking about new and shifting approaches to narrating Jewish political memory and radicalism in popular culture and mass media. As we explore the book, we are also interested in thinking about the role art plays in forging new political imaginaries.

Additional Off-Site Public Programs

Saturday August 15, 10-1pm at the Clemente, Cenacle room on the fourth floor, 107 Suffolk Street, New York NY 10002
Miniature Me – A Puppet Drama
A workshop for children of all ages led by Zoe Beloff. Participants will be invited to tell personal stories with puppets. The workshop will provide simple puppet templates and backdrops that can be painted and colored by the young artists to create miniature versions of themselves, their friends and families. No experience necessary. This workshop is all about enthusiastic participation.

Sunday August 23 – Kassel Garden Part One Kassel Garden
A two-part program of artist films set in urban gardens with a spotlight on Immigrants, organized by The Film-maker’s Co-op at the 6th Street and Avenue B garden.the Singer or the Mouse People (2026) the New York premiere of a film by Zoe Beloff based on Kafka’s last short story and a series of short experimental films.

Thursday September 10 – Kassel Garden Part Two
American Stories: Food, Family and Philosophy (1986) by Chantal Akerman, legendary performers from New York’s downtown scene recount the first-person accounts of immigrants from the early 20th century as though they were their own. A glimpse of the East River waterfront before gentrification.

Rain date Sunday September 13

Life Forgotten and its public programs received support from New York State Council on the Arts Individual Artist grant, New York State Council on the Arts/Wave Farm: Media Arts Assistance Fund, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Creative Engagement and PSC-CUNY;

About City Lore Gallery – The City Lore Gallery is a cultural hub that celebrates New York City’s vibrant cultural atmosphere and provides a platform for the myriad voices that comprise the city. The gallery presents exhibitions and events on all the things that make New York “New York.” From the golden age of graffiti, to endangered languages and activist comics, City Lore finds the art in everyday life.

About City Lore – Founded in 1985, and now an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, City Lore’s mission is to foster New York City – and America’s – living cultural heritage through education and public programs. We document, present, and advocate for New York City’s grassroots cultures to ensure their living legacy in stories and histories, places and traditions. We work in four cultural domains: urban folklore and history; preservation; arts education; and grassroots poetry traditions. In each of these realms, we see ourselves as furthering cultural equity and modeling a better world with projects as dynamic and diverse as New York City itself. For more info: http://www.citylore.org.

City Lore is grateful for support received from: Foundations: Lily Auchincloss Foundation, La Vida Feliz Foundation, New York Community Trust, Scherman Foundation, Public: New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council, New York State Council on the Arts with support of the Office of the Governor and New York State Legislature and Institute for Museum and Library Services.
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