The Art of Climate Dialogue: Stories from Iowa

Alice McGary is a farmer, fiddler, potter, weaver, quilter, mentor, and community facilitator. She's excited about beauty, justice, community, and being outside. She lives and works at the Mustard Seed Community Farm, which is an 11-acre diversified, cooperative farm in northeastern Boone county, near the Ioway Creek.

From Alice: "Many have lived on this land before us, including the Ioway and Meskwaki people, and the pla...

Shelley Buffalo lives on the Meskwaki Settlement with her two sons. The Meskwaki Settlement is Shelley’s home and community. She says: “Wherever I may wander, my path winds back home to my community along the Iowa River. I’m drawn back again and again because this is where I belong and who I belong to. The Meskwaki culture formed me into who I am today. Some of that formation was harsh and some was loving. I may be middle aged now,...

Mary Swander, an Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame 2022 honoree, is the Artistic Director of Swander Woman Productions, a theatre troupe that performs dramas about food, farming, and the wider rural environment. She tours her dramas, including The Girls on the Roof, Vang, Map of my Kingdom, and Farm-to-Fork Tales, from coast-to-coast and gives solo performances of her own work, playing the banjo, the harmonica and the spoons. Her most rece...

Tamara Marcus currently serves as the Linn County Sustainability Director. Previously, they were a Fulbright scholar where they completed two years of climate change research in the Indian Himalaya, working with local communities to translate her physical science research into local conservation policy. Tamara is a Ph.D. candidate in the Natural Resources and Earth System Sciences Ph.D. program at the University of New Hampshire. H...

Jean Eells operates E Resources Group, LLC from Webster City Iowa. She grew up on an Iowa farm where there were no cockleburs. She conducts research and conservation programs with Women, Food and Agriculture Network and other partners.

Stephanie Enloe is the Director of Programming for the Women Food and Agriculture Network (WFAN) and a PhD candidate at Cornell University. She recently returned to her home state of Iowa after livi...

Angie Carter is a writer, organizer, and sociologist whose work focuses on rural communities, agriculture, and movements for ecological and food justice. Originally from the land between two rivers, or what is now known as Iowa, she continues to remain engaged in the movements for ecological justice in the heart of what is now the commodified agricultural system. She currently lives in a very different watershed today – Lake Superi...

Lance M. Foster (Irogre: Finds What is Sought, Bear Clan), b. 1960, is a member of the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska, of the Ioway Nation. Raised in Montana, he received a B.A. in Anthropology and Native American studies from University of Montana as well as an M.A. in Anthropology and an M.L.A. in Landscape Architecture from Iowa State University. He’s an alumnus of the Institute of American Indian Arts. He was the Director of...

Moselle Nita Singh is an artist of Punjabi descent with a background in agroecology and biodiversity regeneration. She has a Bachelor of Arts in cultural anthropology and a Master of Science in ethnobotany. Moselle has worked at various nonprofit organizations, biodiversity initiatives, and small organic farms across the Midwest, as well as Nicaragua and India. Growing up, she often turned to the more-than-human world to foster a s...

Sikowis (Christine Nobiss) is Plains Cree/Saulteaux of the George Gordon First Nation in Saskatchewan, Canada and grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. At 19 she began her life's work of uplifting Indigenous voices when she got her first job at the New Brunswick Aboriginal Peoples Council in Fredericton, Canada. In 2015, she founded Great Plains Action Society as a way to increase Indigenous solidarity in Iowa City. It turned ...

DeAn Kelly, also known as DK Just Human, is a Hiphop influencer and mentor. He is committed to producing positive Hiphop music and has 5 years of experience in community engagement, performance, and hosting workshops and events. DK is from Des Moines, Iowa and is here to inspire through the arts.

DK has engaged in work in Des Moines and Osceola, Iowa, the ancestral lands of the Báxoǰe or Ioway, Sauk, and Meskwaki;  the New Jersey G...

Ruth Rabinowitz was born in Michigan, raised in Arizona, and has lived for over 30 years in the Bay Area of California. Ruth designed a farmhouse and is now living on her land  in Southern Iowa. Ruth holds a BA in Art from University of California Santa Cruz, an Early Childhood Education Site Supervisor degree and PDC Permaculture Design Certificate. When Ruth was a young girl, her father, David, began purchasing farmland in the Mi...

Omar de Kok-Mercado is a photographer, videographer, musician, researcher, and farmer. His technical expertise in soil microbiology and agroecology informs his creative practice. He incorporates this technical knowledge into the inner workings of his creations building sculptures that interact with the natural world. In a hyper-connected world stripped of mystery, his work reflects our innate curiosity and works to cultivate our se...

In this episode, producer Vivian M. Cook, provides a summary of each of the thirteen interview episodes in The Art of Climate Dialogue: Stories from Iowa. She also discusses some of the themes that emerged throughout the series.

Feel free to listen to this episode if you're trying to get a sense of which episodes are of most interest to you, or if you're interested in an overview of the themes and recommendations explored ...