Jul 6, 2023

Why we’re fascinated: Because BRIC Arts Media is so much more than the organization behind the Celebrate Brooklyn! concert series. It’s an arts and media institution anchored in Downtown Brooklyn whose work spans contemporary visual and performing arts, media and civic action. It’s a public media center, a contemporary art exhibition space, multiple performance spaces, a TV studio, artist work spaces and classrooms. Heading it all up is Wes Jackson, who took over as BRIC’s president last year following a career that is just as multifaceted as the organization he’s running. An avid lacrosse player and coach, Jackson founded the hugely influential Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival, of which he was the executive director from 2005 to 2020. “We are wizards,” he told Brooklyn Magazine late last year. “We are alchemists.”

— Brian Braiker