SCREENING: Fantastic Fungi [CANCELLED due to COVID-19]
Wednesday, March 18th, 2020, 1, 4, 7 pm
Marquis Theatre, Downtown Middlebury
Marquis Theatre, Downtown Middlebury
SCREENING: Forgotten Farms
Marquis Theatre, Downtown Middlebury
Wednesday, March 4th, 2020, 1 pm, 4 pm, 7 pm
Wednesday, March 4th, 2020, 1 pm, 4 pm, 7 pm
Directed by Dave Simonds. Screening includes a panel discussion with filmmakers and local dairy farmers.
New England has lost more than 10,000 dairy farms in the past 50 years; fewer than 2,000 farms remain. Collectively, they tend 1.2 million acres of farmland and produce almost all of the milk consumed in the region. In our enthusiasm for the new food movement, we often overlook the farmers at the foundation of the regional agricultural economy.
Climate change will demand that more of our food is grown closer to where we live. As we strive to revive local production, we have much to learn from dairy farmers. Through conversations with farmers and policy experts, Forgotten Farms reconsiders the role of these vital farmers.
“A beautifully photographed documentary animated by a rich cast of characters.” – Boston Globe
New England has lost more than 10,000 dairy farms in the past 50 years; fewer than 2,000 farms remain. Collectively, they tend 1.2 million acres of farmland and produce almost all of the milk consumed in the region. In our enthusiasm for the new food movement, we often overlook the farmers at the foundation of the regional agricultural economy.
Climate change will demand that more of our food is grown closer to where we live. As we strive to revive local production, we have much to learn from dairy farmers. Through conversations with farmers and policy experts, Forgotten Farms reconsiders the role of these vital farmers.
“A beautifully photographed documentary animated by a rich cast of characters.” – Boston Globe
GUEST SPEAKER: Stan Cox, "Beyond the Green New Deal"
Monday, February 17th, 2020, 7 pm
Middlebury College - Hillcrest 103
Middlebury College - Hillcrest 103
CONFERENCE: Down to Earth: Nourishing Change in the Champlain Valley
|
Friday, November 15th, 2019
Middlebury College The 2019 "Down to Earth" conference was the second annual gathering of community partners, students, teachers, and community members to showcase and reflect on the work of the Perennial Turn in Ag and Culture course at Middlebury College. Aubrey Streit Krug, director of Ecosphere Studies at the Land Institute in Kansas, gave the keynote address - "Caring for the Ecosphere". Five featured community partners made up the panel of speakers, sharing their work and engagement with perennial practices in the Champlain Valley. Afterwards audience members engaged in conversations about the meaning and potential within each of the five spheres: Food and Agriculture, Education, Healing Arts, Creative Arts, and Sacred Practices.
Panelists: Thomas Jackson - Mind Body Medicine (Healing Arts Sphere) Nancy Winship Milliken - Artist (Creative Arts Sphere) Corrie Pierce - Bread and Butter Farm (Food and Agriculture Sphere) Matt Schlein - Walden Project and Willowell Foundation (Education Sphere) Sr. Gail Worcelo - Green Mountain Monastery (Sacred Practices Sphere) Click HERE for the video recording of the conference. |
|
CONFERENCE: Nourishing Change through the Arts
Middlebury College - Mahaney Arts Center
Monday, April 22nd, 2019, 4 -7 pm
Monday, April 22nd, 2019, 4 -7 pm
Ode to Dirt Sharon Olds Dear dirt, I am sorry I slighted you, I thought that you were only the background for the leading characters—the plants and animals and human animals. It’s as if I had loved only the stars and not the sky which gave them space in which to shine. Subtle, various, sensitive, you are the skin of our terrain, you’re our democracy. When I understood I had never honored you as a living equal, I was ashamed of myself, as if I had not recognized a character who looked so different from me, but now I can see us all, made of the same basic materials-- cousins of that first exploding from nothing-- in our intricate equation together. O dirt, help us find ways to serve your life, you who have brought us forth, and fed us, and who at the end will take us in and rotate with us, and wobble, and orbit. |
Our Earth Day 2019 Nourishing Change Through the Arts was an approximately three-hour event with live music and dance performances, artistic displays, and a panel discussion followed by an informal reception. The art presented and enjoyed addressed the theme of all living beings - including humans in relationship to the Earth and our changing climate. We strive, as with many of our events, to encourage engagement and participation and choreographed the event to flow, literally, like water throughout the entire venue. The event left participants and contributors energized, creatively influenced and inspired to :
1. Engage more actively with their environments. 2. Cherish an emergent vision for the future of our planet 3. Foster human connection within their homes and communities Students, professors, and community members of Middlebury College shared through mediums of dance, voice and piano music, poetry readings, story telling, and gallery showings of environmental art and sculptures. Following, performers, participants, and observers were invited to join together in conversation to reflect on their experience and engage together about future conversations and practices they could partake in as a continuation of this work. Panelists: Cameron Davis - Visual Artist Sam Guarnaccia - Composer Reed Martin - Middlebury College '19 Lev Spencer Snyder - Middlebury College '20.5 Bill Vitek - Philosopher To view full program with all artistic contributors and panelists, click HERE Transcending Stone
Dancers: Liam Kolling, Molly Conover, Isa Herrick, Xuan He, Mira Vance, with Professor Karima Borni |
Student Art
Cynthia Lying Down
Rachel Nelson 
|
Cynthia Standing
Rachel Nelson More Artists
|
More student art from
Raine Ellison - Watercolors In a Riptide & Body of Blues Keaton Smith - Photography Morning Moment Reed Martin - Painting cover me in mountains Jeff Holland - Music function Ariadne Will -Poetry Rock Omar Valencia - Oratory A story Kate Talano and Nick Brooke - Dance Between our Toes 
|
GATHERING: Earth Day 2019 Silphium Planting at the Knoll
|
Middlebury College Knoll
April 2019 In honor of Earth Day during April of 2019, New Perennial students and teachers teamed up with the Middlebury College Knoll to plant Silphium integrifolium on Middlebury's campus. A plant in the sunflower family native to the Great Plains and other parts of North America, Silphium integrifolium is an oilseed crop that The Land Institute is domesticating. The goal is for "perennial sunflower" to partially replace annual oilseed crops such as sunflower, canola and soy.
Community members and wanderers of the Knoll were invited to enjoy the beautiful flowers and read the signage near them that explained their presence. The instillation provided both education about perennial alternatives to industrially produced oilseed crops, as well as bringing joy and light to the space with the hopes that students, families, visitors, and community members would stop by the Knoll and spend time interacting with the garden. To learn more about the Land Institute's work with Silphium integrifolium: Perennial Sunflower |
|
|
|
GATHERING: "What is the 'Perennial Turn' and how can people of faith contribute to it?"
|
Weybridge Congregational Church
December 15th, 2018 @ 7 pm Anna Durning and Mikayla Haefele, Middlebury College students from "The Perennial Turn in Ag and Culture" course taught during the spring of 2018, explored how lessons from perennial polyculture and research that is being conducted at The Land Institute can be applied more broadly to social institutions to build a more just, sustainable,and "thriveable" world. Throughout the semester, the two partnered with Vermont Interfaith Power and Light and the Addison County Interfaith Climate Action Network to discover ways to bring the theories surrounding the "Perennial Turn" into practice across faith communities. As part of their final project for the class, Anna and Mikayla led a community gathering at Weybridge Congregational church to share their learning and engage attendees along these guiding questions: How do we turn our beliefs (religious, spiritual, or secular) into goals, or a concrete vision for the future? How do we turn those goals into actions – on a daily, weekly, yearly basis? How do we choose what to practice? |
From Anna and Mikayla:
"Please join us to find new ways to define the relationship between humans and non-humans and to welcome the sacred in nature. We hope to reflect deeply on our surroundings (physical, structural, and spiritual), find wonder in the interconnectedness of the world, and identify the ways in which those connections call us to action. All are welcome." |
CONFERENCE: Nourishing Change in Ag and Culture 2018
|
Middlebury College, Friday, December 7th, 2018
Nourishing Change was the inaugural conference for the New Perennial Project at Middlebury College. Open to the public, the conference brought together thought leaders and practitioners in education, agriculture, and community building who have done the work to imagine new stories, remember valuable wisdom, and create innovated relationships and pathways to address the urgency of change. The Perennial Turn course at Middlebury set the foundation and tone for these conversations, with the conference being an extension of student work in the classroom. The conference included panel presentations, discussion and questions; audience engagement; and continuing conversations with attendees in afternoon breakout sessions.
Panelists: Peter Buffett - NoVo Foundation Jen Cirillo - Shelburne Farms Fred Iutzi - The Land Institute Amani Olugbala - Soul Fire Farm Chief Don Stevens - Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk, Abenaki Nation |
Check out the video about this conference here.
|
