Society Project Films Premiere

The Society Project (in a time of Climate Change)
Friday, January 17 at 7pm
118 Elliot

A screening of the community interviews created by Hilltop Montessori Middle School students for The Society Project.

The Hilltop Montessori Middle School has dedicated this academic year to the study of climate change and crisis. The class spent the majority of September and October in the woods studying carbon sequestration, reading Thoreau and other great naturalists, and through observation, stewardship, and writing, deepening their connection to the Earth.

Moving from the forest to downtown late in October, students began a study of place and how a sense of place defines much of our identity. As Wendell Berry wrote: “If you don’t know where you are, you don’t know who you are.” A place is as much a community of shared values as it is a physical environment and the class set out to discover how their community is responding to the threat and reality of climate change. The Society Project is the centerpiece of this exploration. For the project, students selected, interviewed and photographed a member of the wider Brattleboro community and created a digital montage. The interview and resulting montage focused on how the individual in both their work and life addresses climate change.

Community members from many walks of life were involved in this project. There are individuals involved in the municipal life of Brattleboro, artists, activists, clergy, entrepreneurs, a state senator, and business owners. The resulting series of short films reveals a committed, aware, and involved community who care deeply about the future of Brattleboro and the world.