Andrew Ingall, creator of the project “Warlé, Yesterday, and Today,” presents a slide talk and storytelling exercise inspired by the lives and legacy of Warren Kronemeyer and Leon Ingall, a Vermont couple who were entrepreneurs and civic leaders in Townshend, VT during the 1980 and 1990s. Leon was a refugee twice: first fleeing the Bolsheviks in 1918 and then again from the Nazis in the late 1930s.
Warren and Leon’s remarkable story of love, adversity, caregiving, and creativity provides a lens to explore similar and divergent experiences of today’s LGBTQ+ elders, asylum-seekers, refugees, and migrants. The afternoon will conclude with a discussion from local organizations that include an overview of various immigration statuses and avenues towards residency; how these underrepresented communities invigorate cultural, economic, and social life; and how citizens can best support newcomers.
This event was recorded at the Brooks Memorial Library on October 20, 2022 by Brattleboro Community Television as part of our 2022 Fall Festival “Where We Land: Storytelling that Propels Us.”
Andy Ingall has been working in arts, culture, and community engagement for over twenty years as a curator, scholar, writer, performer, and producer. He received a B.A. from Columbia College and an M.A. in Performance Studies from Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. His collaborators have included cultural workers, artists, scholars, faith leaders, activists, health care professionals, and funeral directors.
Kate Paarlberg-Kvam (she/they) is Executive Director at the Community Asylum Seekers Project (CASP), headquartered in Brattleboro. Kate holds a PhD in Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and is a former postdoctoral fellow at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, where she conducted research on gender, displacement, and postwar reconciliation efforts. Kate works with CASP’s team of staff and volunteers to support twenty asylum seekers in Southern Vermont, providing legal aid, housing, advocacy, language learning, and job placement services, and cultivating a supportive community for people fleeing political violence and building new lives in this country.
Alex Beck (he/him) is a Brattleboro resident, and holds a MA in Service, Leadership, and Management from SIT Graduate Institute. He has extensive experience in community development, youth engagement, and social entrepreneurism in rural economies in the U.S and abroad. Alex has resided in Windham County since 2012, and has been at BDCC since 2015. He coordinates the Southern Vermont Workforce Center of Excellence, and facilitates the creation, organization, and distribution of regional workforce and education opportunities for Vermonters throughout the Windham region.
Abdullah was born in Panjshir, Afghanistan, migrated to Pakistan and grew up there, where he studied painting, traditional calligraphy, Persian Miniatures, learned and taught English as a second language and graduated from high school. He moved back to Kabul Afghanistan, completed his bachelors degree in computer science as well as worked as an IT Trainer for three years. He also painted wall murals with themes of social transformation and peace building with the artist collective, Artlords as a part time profession. When the Taliban took over the control of Kabul, he had to flee and found himself in Brattleboro, Vermont. He’s now rebuilding his life and finding new ways to make cross cultural collaborative murals with different regional artists using different mediums. He is also producing individual personal artwork using oil and acrylic paint on canvas using different genres.
Join us in October during National Arts and Humanities Month for our Where We Land Fall Festival, a remix of our Annual Fall Conference. Attend in-person events in communities around Vermont or join hybrid events online. Many sessions will center around the themes of our Vermont Reads 2022 selection, The Most Costly Journey, a comics collection of stories told by migrant workers in Vermont.
Trauma-informed journalist and essayist Lori Yearwood explores what it means to be a trauma-informed journalist when reporting on difficult topics. Having experienced homelessness herself, she suggests key ideas to keep in mind as journalists engage with populations who face dire situations and systemic poverty.
In this First Wednesdays event at the Brownell Library on November 2, 2022, author/illustrator Glynnis Fawkes reads from and discusses her latest work-in-progress and describes how the storytelling elements of comics—panel design, pacing, research, and narrative—are employed in creating non-fiction graphic novels. She also reviews the comic she contributed to the Vermont Reads 2022 book, The Most Costly Journey (El Viaje Más Caro).
Author and Middlebury professor Gloria Estela Gonzalez Zenteno discusses her new novel Arribada, about a woman pushed to confront her role in environmental and social injustice, and a well-to-do family’s realization that their comfortable position rests on crimes against the natural world, their town, and their loved ones.
A finalist for the Vermont Book Award, North is a moving story about a Vermont monk, a Somali refugee, and an Afghan war veteran whose lives converge on a snowy Vermont night. Author Brad Kessler reviews the creation of the novel and his ongoing work with new Americans in Vermont.
In this First Wednesdays event recorded on November 2, 2022 at the Rutland Free Library, UVM lecturer Chris Vaccaro explores J.R.R. Tolkien’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and his occupation with female divinities such as Varda, Yavanna, Melian, Luthien, and Galadriel in his work. Vaccaro compares these divinities with goddesses within Greco-Roman, Celtic, and Norse mythologies and considers Tolkien’s influences.
Andrew Ingall, creator of the project “Warlé, Yesterday, and Today,” presents a slide talk and storytelling exercise inspired by the lives and legacy of Warren Kronemeyer and Leon Ingall, a Vermont couple who were entrepreneurs and civic leaders in Townshend, VT during the 1980 and 1990s. Leon was a refugee twice: first fleeing the Bolsheviks in 1918 and then again from the Nazis in the late 1930s.
Hosted by the Center for Cartoon Studies, this lively presentation about the making of Freedom and Unity, A Graphic Guide to Vermont Democracy features the cartoonists and scholars that helped create a comic book about the past, present, and potential of democracy and civics in Vermont.
In his award-winning Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America, journalist Eyal Press examines the morally troubling jobs that society tacitly condones, and the hidden class of workers who do them. Press, a contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Times, discusses his reporting for the book, which won the 2022 Hillman Prize for book journalism and appeared on numerous “best books of 2021” lists.
Author and cartoonist Rachel Lindsay explores the themes of mental illness and psychopharmaceutical advertising, as chronicled in her book RX: A Graphic Memoir.
Over 1200 migrant workers from Mexico, Guatemala, and other Latin American countries labor on farms and for businesses in Vermont. Their stories are not often heard. With the help of the Open Door Clinic, we spoke with several of these crucial workers. Some wanted to conceal their identities.
Three people central to the creation of The Most Costly Journey discuss migration, farming, mental health, cartooning, and the Latinx farmworker experience in Vermont.
This video about the making of the pamphlets that became The Most Costly Journey includes a conversation between Vermont farm worker “El Enmigrante” (the immigrant) and cartoonist Marek Bennett about collaborating on his story.
Poet Sarah Audsley joined us at the Taconic Mountains Ramble State Park for Words in the Woods.
Humanities Camps are filled with reading and writing projects, field trips, and outdoor activities.
We won a 2020 Schwartz Prize for best public humanities programming in the U.S. for Vermont Reads 2019: “March: Book One.”
We supported Historic New England’s “More than a Market” project that explored the experiences of new Americans through food markets.
Our free public events help bring the power of the humanities to communities across Vermont.
