BRATTLEBORO — The area artists' collective Vortex 2 will present “Witness: An Exploration of Art and Journalism,” a show that will include readings of prose and poetry, video, and photographs, and music.
The event will benefit Vermont Independent Media, the publisher of The Commons.
According to members of the collective, “Witness” is based on the concept that, like journalism, various forms of art are ways of bearing witness to the truth of things.
Vortex 2 is intended to “bring together poetry, music, and art in integrated and improvisational ways to promote social justice by creating events that are aesthetically powerful, promote social change, and benefit local charities addressing poverty,” writes MacLean Gander, a poet and member of the collective.
The collective was founded by Gander and John Rose (both poets, and both professors of English at Landmark College in Putney), along with musician Charlie Schneeweis (professor of music at Landmark) and artist Elizabeth Johnson (local artist and former executive director of KidsPLAYce), as well as Ben Somin, Abigail Straus, Omoefe Ogbeide, and Jesse Whitehouse, all current or former Landmark students.
“Part of the intention of Vortex 2 is to break boundaries between forms of art and generations of artists,” the organizers wrote in a press release. “The founders bring a range of ages and artistic genres to the collective, from age 23 to 57, and from performance poetry to skilled jazz improvisation.”
In “Witness,” readings will be accompanied by some projected video and art, as well as music.
Rose will read new work from his epic poem, which focuses on American culture and society in the 1960s and 1970s, and Gander will read work focused on his experiences as a journalist and poet in the Philippines during the revolution that overthrew the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship.
McCord will read poems from his experiences as a journalist in Mississippi and from his travels in India, Pakistan, and the disputed territory of Kashmir.
Straus and Somin will read poems from the Stalin era in Russian and in translation.
The event will be in two parts, keyed to two quotes.
The first half will center on the readings by Gander and McCord and include videos that illuminate the connections between journalism and art. It will take its focus from lines from Robert Lowell's last poem, “Epilogue,” in which he says: “Yet why not say what happened./Pray for the grace of accuracy....”
The second half of the program will be focused on new work from John Rose's epic poem - centered on a single day, June 14, 1968 - that has not yet been read in public. This segment of the program organizes itself around James Joyce's statement, “history [...] is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.”
The event is also connected to an ongoing gallery show at the Hooker-Dunham that features politically oriented work by local artists, curated by Johnson. The gallery will open each night at 7 p.m. for those who want to take in the show before the performance begins.
Gander noted that the collective welcomes inquiries from artists and others who may wish to join in its purpose and activities.
Benefits a nonprofit and its newspaper
Vermont Independent Media was born in 2004 “out of a need to be free from risks of remote media-conglomerate control of our local print media,” writes Barry Aleshnick, the president of the nonprofit's board of directors and one of its founders.
VIM is dedicated to demystifying the process of creating community media and has offered more than 50 media education programs for schools and adults through its Media Mentoring Project over the past decade.
The first issue of the newspaper was published in January 2006. This year marks The Commons' 10th year, and the paper just celebrated its 300th issue in April.
The newspaper started as a monthly black-and-white tabloid produced solely by its founding board members and other volunteers. It hired its first permanent editor in 2008, and the paper began publishing weekly two years later.
Since that time, its press run has doubled, from 4,500 copies per week to more than 9,000, distributed all throughout Windham County and to many adjacent towns farther afield. The organization is hoping to expand the number of paying members, who now number approximately 400.
“The organization was born to find a way to safeguard local journalism as the lifeblood of a vital community and a bulwark of a functioning democracy; to be grounded in the values and interests of its readers; to faithfully reflect the wide array of [regional] perspectives; to be accessible to all; and to give voice to the voiceless who are equal and vital parts of our society and who deserve a platform for telling their stories, which are important for all of us to hear,” Aleshnick writes.
A wall of awards - more than 30 - from regional media organizations attests to the paper's journalistic excellence, and a steep increase in readership and advertising proves its value to its own community, and points to its continuing success, Aleshnick noted.
Aleshnick noted that the work of The Commons is being modeled by print media in other communities, including several newspapers in Vermont that are in the process or considering exploring the nonprofit model.
As the newspaper has grown and matured, it has made its own decisions about what to print, “free from profit motives and advertising pressures,” he added.
“Our communities are richer for it,” said Aleshnick, the only founder of VIM who remains on the board. “As a nonprofit, the paper has shown itself to be a viable way forward for journalism in a time of transition.”