Folklife Center finds new home on Main St.

Author: Kelly Janis

"When people think of studying culture, often their first image is of going to some exotic, faraway place and trying to sort out patterns of adolescent sexuality in New Guinea or something," said folklorist Greg Sharrow with a playful grin as he gazed out the window at late afternoon traffic crawling sluggishly down Main Street - a new vista for the Director of Education at the Vermont Folklife Center, which relocated this summer to Middlebury's historic downtown. "My interest is in entering into a cultural environment that is in some ways very familiar, but exoticizing that familiar experience in order to more deeply engage the way in which culture is studied."

That interest lies at the crux of his work at an organization which, in its 23-year tenure, has prided itself on "preserving and presenting the folk arts and cultural traditions of Vermont and the surrounding region." It does so by means of exhibits, workshops, field research, publications and a wide variety of outreach projects aimed chiefly at preserving the spoken word as contained on over 5,000 taped and archived interviews conducted with Vermonters on a variety of themes.

"The Vermont Folklife Center is on the cutting edge of technology," said Executive Director Brent Bjˆrkman. "All of the other Folklife Centers in the United States really see us as a groundbreaking institution."

This technological prominence promises to be solidified with the implementation of a new multimedia exhibit containing a recording and mastering studio as well as iPod listening stations at which visitors can listen to excerpts from the center's vast collection of interviews, 20 percent of which have already been securely digitalized as part of Vermont Folklife's preservation efforts. The center also plans to make its resources available to others who similarly seek to salvage aging audio materials.

In addition, gallery space has been allotted for the creation of a documentary images gallery, which upon opening will be the only gallery in the state dedicated to ethnographic photography.

"We have all of these wonderful photographers who have been taking photographs throughout Vermont for years and years," Bjˆrkman said, "and having a space dedicated to that is pretty special."

Although the center's gift shop is open and the public is welcome to browse completed features of the multimedia exhibit, the building's bottom floor remains a flurry of cardboard boxes, ladders and spackled walls as the center hurries diligently toward its official Nov. 10 opening. Bjˆrkman admitted that construction is running slightly behind schedule, but expressed enthusiasm toward the emergence of his vision. "We're very excited to be opening," he said.

Operations Manager Sarah Stahl echoed his sentiment. "I think it's going to be fantastic," Stahl said. "I really do."

The breadth of the Vermont Folklife Center's work is not contained in a single building, but rather permeates the state it serves as it seeks to translate its research into practical applications.

"We've been working with the Somali Bantu and Bosnian communities, which helps articulate that Vermont really is a diverse place to live," Bjˆrkman said. "I mean, it's overarchingly Anglo-American. But there is a growing population of immigrants, especially in the cities - say, Burlington and the Winooski area, where we've done a lot of our research. I think there's a lot of pride in that."

Sharrow agrees. "There's a lot of diversity in Vermont," he said. "But it's a quiet diversity."

This diversity is no better exemplified than by the Somali Bantu refugees who inhabit Winooski, Vt. On its website, the Winooski school district bills itself as "the state's smallest school district, encompassing 1.2 square miles." Its size, however, is belied by its diversity.

"Winooski High School is tiny," said Sharrow. "It graduates 50 kids a year, but there are over 20 languages spoken there." The cultural spectrum will further widen itself this school year with the arrival of approximately 50 new students from a refugee camp in Burundi.

Sharrow and his colleagues have capitalized upon this unique state of affairs. "We're partnering with a particular teacher there who is really taking a lead role in opening that can of worms," Sharrow said. He described plans to implement a youth radio program in the town to initiate a dialogue about the students' lives, families and backgrounds. He hopes that the partnership will help foster an environment conducive to intercultural dialogue and cross cultural understanding.

"We don't know where it's going to go, but we're there," Sharrow said.

The ethnographic approach employed by Sharrow and his colleagues hinges on assuming an insider's point of view.

"How does the world look if you're a Somali Bantu refugee in Winooski?" Sharrow said. "Not 'what are the issues facing Somali Bantu people reported from an outsider's point of view, observing this process of resettlement.' But when you get off the plane and are suddenly confronted by this place, what does it look like, what are the challenges that are happening in your life, what does this process of readjustment look like from your perspective?"

Sharrow suggested that the projects undertaken by the Vermont Folklife Center harness the potential to bridge history and culture to contemporary social issues.

"This is an incredibly divisive time, when people are shouting at one another from entrenched points of view," said Sharrow. "Ethnography is a perfect tool to begin to understand somebody who holds a perspective that runs contrary to your own. It's not like they're just an idiot. That perspective is founded on something. How are you going to understand that empathetically if you stand on the outside and demonize and two-dimensionalize that person?"

Among Bjˆrkman's favorite aspects of the organization's new location is its proximity to the College.

"It's a hand-and-glove kind of thing," Bjˆrkman said, noting the parallels between the center's mission and curricula in various departments, including anthropology and film and media studies.

To this end, Vermont Folklife has already begun to nurture its bond with the College by means of events in conjunction with the Women and Gender Studies program, as well as a service learning project with a first-year seminar last fall. "It was a good goal for us to be a liaison for students to create something of value and significance," Sharrow said.

Both Sharrow and Bjˆrkman expressed their hope that the partnership between the center and the College is only beginning.

"I would love to have students visit and see what we're all about, and hopefully pick up our excitement and brainstorm with us on what they might like to do," Bjˆrkman said.

"I'm sure there are all kinds of people with whom we have common cause, and who have common cause with us," Sharrow added. "It would be great to figure out where that common cause is, and how we can pull together on things that we all care passionately about, and are deeply interested in."