Eva Barr (producer and director) is a small-scale farmer and theatre-maker living outside Wykoff, in southeastern Minnesota. A native of Albert Lea, Barr studied theatre at Northwestern University where she met the seven other collaborators with whom she founded Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago in 1988. She remained an active Lookingglass ensemble member for 25 years as actor, choreographer, adaptor, and teacher, much of that time spanning life between Chicago and Wykoff, where the work of building the off-the-grid land collective, DreamAcres, was constant. Since 2003, Barr and others have developed DreamAcres Farm into a performance space and workshop, hosting the Dreamery Rural Arts Initiative (non-profit) and Flourish Summer Camp. Through Rare Theatre and DirtRoadDaughter, Barr writes and produces live work (mostly) about the people and places of SE Minnesota. She also facilitates Fillmore County Discussion on Race (FCDoR), a group seeking to identify and challenge the barriers to racial diversity in rural Minnesota. Much of Barr’s work is supported by Minnesota’s regional and state arts councils funded by the citizens of Minnesota.
https://www.dreamacresfarm.org/
Michelle de la Vega (producer, director and cinematographer) is a multidisciplinary, installation, public, and community engagement artist based in Spring Valley, MN and Seattle, WA. Her conceptually driven and socially engaged work includes a mixture of sculpture, immersive environmental design, video and film, collage, photography, choreography, artifact assemblage, text, site specific installation, and partnership building through project-based community engagement. As a teaching artist Michelle has worked with a diversity of underserved groups and individuals as a hands on teacher and creative facilitator, as well as through program and curriculum development. Her teaching work has been deeply influenced and inspired by her mother. Michelle is also a beekeeper, a micro intensive food farmer, an elder caregiver, and lives on a small farmstead in Southeastern Minnesota.
https://www.michelledelavega.com/
Maji Ya Chai Land Sanctuary (participant) is a black-founded, nature-based healing space created to provide rest, reconnection and rejuvenation of mind, body and spirit, centering BIPOC communities and all our relations across generations. We believe rest, reconnection, and rejuvenation of mind, body and soul in nature is essential for healing and being with our full and true selves. We are the only nature based space on the north shore of Gichigaming (Lake Superior) founded and led by Black, Indigenous and people of color.
https://www.thelandsanctuary.com/
Makoce Ikikcupi (participant), meaning Land Recovery, is a project of Reparative Justice on Dakota land in Minisota Makoce (Minnesota). The Makoce Ikikcupi project seeks to bring some of our relatives home, re-establish our spiritual and physical relationship with our homeland, and ensure the ongoing existence of our People. Our cultural survival depends on it. Dakota people were systematically dispossessed of our homeland and we currently reside on about .01 % (about one-hundredth of one percent) of our original land base within the borders of what is now the State of Minnesota. Our work is a positive action to help repair the most fundamental harm of settler-colonialism–Indigenous disconnection from the land.
The Land Stewardship Project (sponsor) is a private nonprofit organization founded in 1982 to foster an ethic of stewardship for farmland, to promote sustainable agriculture, and to develop healthy communities. LSP is dedicated to creating transformational change in our food and farming system. LSP’s work has a broad and deep impact, from new farmer training and local organizing, to federal policy and community based food systems development. At the core of all our work are the values of stewardship, justice, fairness, democracy, health and community.
https://landstewardshipproject.org/
The Village Food Cooperative (participant) is a collaborative of people from all over the world who are
building the economic power of historically marginalizedcommunities through food justice initiatives that are sustainable to our planet. We source land in under-utilized urban areas to create family farms that produce culturally relevant foods which sustain indigenous traditions and nourish diverse communities.
Through entrepreneurial opportunities, the Village advances the development of food sovereignty.
We connect more than 250 families with land access to grow their own food.
30% of our farmers preserve more than 100 pounds of food per year, primarily through freezing.
Culturally specific greens are the #1 food that our farmers preserve.
40% of our farmers are interested in growing their own farm business and earning income from farming.
15% report earning "life-changing" income through the food they sell from their farm.
45% are interested in participating in our technical assistance programs to grow their own business.
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture Emerging Farmers Office (participant) exists to support emerging farmers regarding resources and opportunities available throughout the Department of Agriculture and the state. Their mission is to advance the success and sustainability of farmers who traditionally face barriers to the education and resources necessary to build profitable agricultural businesses, including immigrant farmers and farmers of color, and also to hear from people directly about the barriers that emerging farmers face and learn to tell a more complete story about farming in Minnesota - one that accurately encompasses what farmers of all backgrounds are experiencing.
https://www.mda.state.mn.us/emerging-farmers
Project Funders
This project was made possible with very generous support from:
FS Foundation: https://apply.fsfdn.org/
Spingboard for the Arts: https://springboardforthearts.org/
The Land Stewardship Project: https://landstewardshipproject.org/