A few months ago, I poised the question wondering whether we can learn to love ourselves for who we are. But upon further introspection, I realized that the question may have been a bit too broad in scope to elicit a proper answer since the sum of the answers would be as different as the road we each must travel.
So I want to update my quest for an answer by asking simply, "Can we just hit the pause button for two days and consider who we are and how the humanities might provide a path to an answer?"
If you select Saturday and Sunday (Nov. 12 & 13) as your two days and join the group heading to the Grand Rapids Art Museum for the first
Michigan Film, Art & Literature Symposium, then you are going to be in for an unique opportunity to not only interact with some amazing voices from all over Michigan, but possibly play a role in changing the way we think about (and how others see) our state.
Employing the question, “Hey, Michigan, who do you think you are?” in their advertising materials, the GRAM’s and symposium co-creator Kerri VanderHoff, along with a team of artists, writers, filmmakers and community leaders, invite the community to join them in a reflective conversation about the Michigan perspective.
Over the past few years, Rapid Growth has been advocating such introspection not only from the stories we have covered, but also from the guest writers we have placed on our site who have drilled deep into a specific topic.
One voice that stood out to VanderHoff was Kevin Budelmann, a designer, author and co-founder of Peopledesign. Budelmann contributed a guest blog entry to Rapid Growth that ultimately inspired her to host this symposium.
At the start of the year, Budelmann wrote, “We must be brave in our new world, think hard about where we excel (or where we could excel), and work collectively toward a common and mutually beneficial goal. We should be mindful of how we are perceived and how we want to be perceived. What people think of us is important. After all, thinking generally precedes doing.”
While this event focuses on the humanities, it might pose an easy target for some people to write this off as a just-for-arts-and-arts-friendly-folk event. After closer inspection of the list of speakers, which include names from all over that state, that is clearly not the case.
VanderHoff stresses the vehicle for our vision of who we are as a state is often conveyed through the filter of our state’s artists, filmmakers and authors who act more often as the vessels or mediators of our ideas.
Michigan is in a state of flux as it enters this next stage. This period is truly an exciting time, since so much is set in motion and will change. But to move forward without periods of introspection means we run the risk of ambling aimlessly towards our future, often letting other forces control our direction.
By hitting the pause button at this two-day symposium, we are invited to have the chance to listen and engage with many diverse voices in our state as we take a self-inventory.
At the end of the second day, Grand Valley State University’s art professor Paul Wittenbraker’s community feedback session, The Michigan Voice, will be conducted. The ideas generated here from the shared conversations between the audience and the guest voices from around our state will be recorded.
The recordings will first assemble our thoughts and collective experiences but secondly, also present for us a marker in present time that we can return to at a later date as we revisit the potential goals or measure our outcomes.
If all goes as planned, VanderHoff believes these two days will, “enable us as a state to self-define who we truly are, rather than allowing outside forces to define it for us.”
We are not alone in the process of envisioning who we are as places like Los Angeles and Chicago have both launched visioning events, asking the same questions as they seek to position themselves for the next leap. Our timing is impeccable and urgent at the same time. So when the moment arrives as it does on Nov. 12 & 13, we must not squander our time together.
Social scientists like Alvin Toffler have alerted us for decades that this rapid shift in our society on every level would come at a certain point in our development, from an industrial society to a post-period one.
The humanities' power to illustrate these next steps was recently showcased in the theatrical work of Austin Bunn’s "Rust," but also seen on a larger scale in the conversion of former factory or industrial spaces into centers of creative innovation. The humanities are providing that message.
So, it is with much excitement that we stand on the edge of this new chapter in Michigan’s story, a history that is yet to be written and a vision that is, if we ask the right questions and are truthful in our inventoried replies, the best that Michigan can put forward.
The Future Needs All of Us (to be.)
Tommy Allen, Lifestyle Editor
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Photos of Michigan provided by Tommy Allen, who took the occasion of this symposium to reflect on his images of our state from his journeys. He will serve as a moderator at one of the breakout sessions on Saturday. While at the GRAM, be sure to check out the amazing catalog they produced of their 2011 ArtPrize artists. It was shot by Mitch Ranger, one of my favorite photographers, who represents just one of the many photographers who pepper our landscape with their visual talent.