Paper short abstract:

This talk considers methods and ethics at the intersections of documentary arts, oral history & public folklore practice in the context of a multi-modal folklife/arts project on organic farming -- with an eye to how arts-inflected forms and exhibition venues can catalyze urgent public conversations.

Paper long abstract:

This paper/talk discuss intersections of documentary arts, oral history and public folklore practice in the context of my work with the Growing Right Project -- a multi-modal public folklife, oral history and arts project tracking histories of organic farming in Ohio. Growing Right has found public support through both arts and humanities funding agencies, and has, since the beginning, sought to push back on 'expected' modes of public folklife output (pull-up banners, museum-like text) to seek more powerful ways and non-traditional venues to catalyze community conversation about the urgencies of environmental and agricultural harm in Ohio, U.S.A.; and the legacies of local organizing to build a more regenerative ecological agriculture. Drawing from new directions in experimental ethnography, experimental film, sound studies and oral history "research-creation," I will discuss key ways that my joint "documentary arts"/public folklore work have clarified both a hybrid praxis and a new ethics for my community-collaborative work -- in ways that uniquely reflect the ecological theme of the Growing Right Project, and seem resonant for the field of folklore studies at large, as we take up and seek to build work in solidarity with communities fighting for justice and planetary survival.