Founded by Chiquita Brujita in 2015, Brooklyn Brujeria is a Brooklyn-based creative house committed to using the power of art and joy as a form of culture bearing, consciousness raising and community building. Since 2018, the now annual Brooklyn Brujeria Festival brings together a diverse group of the city’s artists, makers, and healers to drum, dance, sing, and share in the name of our collective liberation. Featuring performances from the city’s top drummers, DJs, and artists from across the African Diaspora; Art + Altar installations, Tarot and Oracle Readings, Magic Maker Markets, and workshops, the Brooklyn Brujeria Festival is a testament to the power of the spirit to set us free.
The 2025 Brooklyn Brujeria Festival will take place from October 3rd – 5th with signature events including Noche de Tambores @ The DUMBO Archway on Friday October 3rd from 5-10pm, the Magic Market + Fair (12-5pm) + Noche de Salsa (9pm-1am) @ BRIC House on Saturday October 4th, and Aché y Café: A Day of Decolonized Wellness @ X.Roads Cafe/Alchemia Studios(12-6pm) on Sunday October 5th.
I have the honor of tending to my fourth altar amid all of this magic on the opening night! Tended to by Ancestors in Training™, this year’s altar arrives in a moment when the world continues to feel heavy with grief, injustice, and uncertainty. It can feel almost impossible to imagine joy. Yet through this annual festival, we understand that joy isn’t a luxury - it is a necessary practice of survival, resistance, and healing. Our ancestors navigated oppression, displacement, and violence, and still found ways to sing, to dance, to gather, and to love. They remind us that joy is not separate from struggle, but woven into how we endure and transform.
This altar installation honors change as both inevitable and sacred - a threshold that clears space for joy to take root. Inspired by Octavia Butler’s wisdom that “God is Change” and the powerful orisha Oya, the altar is designed as a portal: one side dedicated to release, the other to invite in possibility. It reminds us that transformation is not only an ending, but also the fertile ground where joy, healing, and transformation can take place. By treating joy as a conscious response to change, rather than a distraction from it, we build cultures of care that resist erasure and harm. This altar, and the practice it embodies, asks us to hold both truths: that grief and rage are valid, and that joy has a rightful place beside them.
Learn more on their website brooklynbrujeira.org
