On This Land
I am excited to share some share updates with you about our programs this year. The ongoing pandemic has disrupted the Storytellers’ Institute in challenging and wonderful ways for the last few years. As a result of the pandemic, we had one fully virtual institute in 2020 and one hybrid institute in 2021 (Skidmore Fellows in person and Visiting Fellows online). Both of these experiences have grown and stretched us in both difficult and amazing ways. In 2020, the cohort supported each other through quarantine and produced the first-ever virtual Storytellers’ exhibit SHIFT. In 2021, the Institute was part of global MDOCS Forum which partnered with four international documentary organizations to bring a global perspective to the theme of Co-Creation in five different languages.
Normally, at this time of year I would be full steam ahead on our open calls for Visiting and Skidmore Fellows. However, this year we have decided to take a short rest from our open call process in order to re-group after two years of virtual/hybrid institutes and to focus on including the community-based collaborations that are part of the Mellon-funded MDOCS Co-Creation Initiative. There will be a 2022 Storytellers’ Institute, but it will look a little different from past years. Part of fostering a dynamic cultural space is branching out and shaking things up. Therefore, through the theme of “On This Land” we are bringing our community partners into the space of the Storytellers’ Institute and will foster a rich creative and intellectual exchange between community partners (Regional Fellows), select Skidmore students and faculty/staff (Skidmore Fellows) and professional documentarians (Visiting Fellows). During the 2022 Storytellers’ Institute, Fellows will have time to work on both independent and collaborative projects, learn new skills, and think expansively about documentary practice as it relates to stories that are rooted in local topographies instead of totalizing ideas.
As Patricia Zimmerman and Helen Di Michiel write in their text Open Space New Media Documentary, “Microhistories shift history away from the grand narrative, the large scale, and the lives of the elite, to refocus on everyday concepts, individuals, places or things. Microhistories intervene into and reroute macrohistories’ focus on large concepts and big events of long duration such as wars. In contrast microhistory emphasizes many voices, multiple layers of action, and storytelling to particularize a place.”
We will re-focus on this land –– the unceded lands of the Haudenosaunee and Mohican Nations, currently known as Saratoga Springs, NY. We will deepen our understanding of the narrative of this place, beyond the dominant narrative, and recognize the many voices, lives, and stories that are layered here.
We will keep you posted as this process unfolds and hope that you keep us posted on the ways in which your lives twist and turn as well!
With love,
Sarah Ema Friedland
Interim Director of MDOCS (while Adam Tinkle is on Sabbatical!)
