The 36th Annual Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF) is hosting the world premiere of documentary filmmaker and ITP Grant Partner Casey Beck's  "The Organic Life" - Saturday, October 5th 3:15pm and Monday, October 7th, 3:00pm.  Carol Harado of the MVFF says: "This feast for the senses takes us through four seasons on the farm, following the rhythms of nature and revealing the attendant challenges and joys of locally oriented, sustainable agriculture. Austin's satisfaction in doing what he loves every day, collaborating with the earth by leading a life more fully connected to it, becomes a teaching on true abundance." 

ITP recently interviewed Grant Partner Heidi Quante of HighWaterLine.  In 2012, Heidi joined forces with artist and HighWaterLine New York creator Eve Mosher in hopes that by amplifying the original New York project concept they will help communities realize how climate change will personally impact their local area.

ITP:  You've been an activist on several different issues throughout your career. What sparked you to become involved with the HighWaterLine project, and how did your collaboration with Eve Mosher come about?

Heidi:  I had been working on environmental issues for over 14 years in different capacities. I'd done everything from lobbying in Washington, D.C. to working with grassroots environmental organizations overseas and domestically. What I heard constantly from all of these groups was their desire to go "beyond the choir". There was a shared recognition that it wasn't enough to have support from the people already on board, that reaching out to the general public was necessary for real social change to occur. Even though the groups had this recognition, I found that they kept using the same tactics.   » Read More

GLOBAL ALLIANCE INCINERATOR ALTERNATIVES (GAIA) is an international alliance that works both against incinerators and for safe, sustainable and just alternatives: 

A lot of attention has been paid in media and policy circles to energy and transportation as keys to addressing climate change. But the ways that we produce, transport, use, and throw away stuff have important impacts on the climate. EPA analysis shows that the systems to make, distribute, use and waste the stuff we use and the food we eat cause 42% of U.S. greenhouse gases and that these systems are deeply intertwined with energy and transportation.  » Read More

Winters Past is an audio project from the collaborative team of Isaac Kestenbaum and Josie Holtzman.  They will use soundwalks and podcasts during the 2013-14 New England winter to create a sensory experience to preserve the memory of what winter once was. 

WINTER IS CHANGING
What does winter mean to you?  That's the question we've been posing to most of the people we interview.  I have been amazed by the responses this question has elicited.  One woman spoke about how much she enjoys the experience of being cold—and the small joy that is coming in from the outdoors and warming oneself by a hearth.  We've heard memories of sledding, ice skating and even ice sailing. » Read More

The process of bringing The Organic Life to light has been long, arduous and sometimes monotonous, but in that sense, it’s not unlike the process of organic farming, which it seeks to reveal. Our farmers start out with a seed – or, in my case, a simple idea – which they plant and cultivate, caring for it with water, compost and sun. However, despite their best efforts to nurture this plant, its success is ultimately dependent on so many factors, natural elements, over which they have no control. » Read More

This is too much fun, I worried on the second night of  The Pause.

Intro from Hidden City Diaries - Essays from Life by Gabriela Denise Frank.  A few weeks ago, I spoke with Maggie Kaplan, founder of Invoking the Pause, the environmental small grants program that funded my CityLab7 partners and I in the ideation and development of our urban mushroom farm.

It's been a year since our installation closed, marking the end of a long-term project fed by buckets of sweat equity and three grants. » Read More

Invoking the Pause recently had the chance to talk with 2012 ITP Grant Partner and "Seeding Possibilities" grant recipient, Trathen Heckman.  Trathen is the founder and Executive Director of Daily Acts, the Board President of Transition U.S., and a backyard farmer. To register for Daily Acts 350 Home & Garden Challenge please click here.
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This Spring, as the trees grow blossoms that will soon bear new fruit, we are happy to share news of the collaborations blooming in our Invoking the Pause community. We selected from this year's dynamic candidates three Grant Partners who will receive funding to "invoke a pause" in 2013.

• A Creative Pause to Build a Narrative Strategy: Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA)
• HighWaterLine: Eve Mosher, Heidi Quante and other collaborators
• Memorial for Winters Past: Isaac Kestenbaum and Josie Holtzman
  

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Eileen Thorsos is the Sustainability Education Program Coordinator for the Duke University Environmental Leadership Program & Duke University Superfund Research Center.  Her work includes integrating sustainability into Duke curricula and communicating with professional and general audiences about environmental health and toxicology.  She is interested in implementing effective communications approaches for shifting people's attitudes and behaviors related to climate change. 

Eileen 'invoked the pause' in the hills of North Carolina last fall with the Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment team.  She recently spoke to us about this experience and the ensuing 'collateral delights'.

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