Ned Castle is joining the Vermont Folklife Center staff as a Digital
Media Instructor for the Center’s Discovering Community* *School
Outreach Program to K-12 schools. Castle is an extraordinary documentary
photographer whose first major exhibit, “In Their Own Words: Stories
from Refugees Settled in Vermont Communities,”
http://their-own-words.org was produced in partnership with the
Vermont Folklife Center’s Vision & Voice Documentary Workspace.
Subsequent exhibit projects—“Indigenous Expressions” at the ECHO Museum
and Science Center and the HIGHLOW Project that is currently touring
statewide—have met with great critical acclaim.
Castle’s approach to photography mirrors the Vermont Folklife Center’s
research process in the sense that both strive to understand—and
portray—another person’s story from their perspective and on their
terms. As Ned observes, “I am a storyteller and photography is my voice.
While the quality of my photography is based in part on technique and
aesthetic sensibility, I believe that my relationships with people and
their worlds are what gives me an effective hand at creating images.”
(http://nedcastle.com/)
The Center’s Discovering Community Program
(http://www.discoveringcommunity.org/) which Castle is joining, equips
students with the skills to discover the distinctive character of their
hometowns by engaging the stories of family, friends, and community
members. The Program draws on concepts from ethnographic research to
develop students’ capacity for deep listening and to use digital media
to tell people’s stories collaboratively and responsibly.
For more information about this and other Vermont Folklife Center
programs and services, visit our Web site at
www.vermontfolklifecenter.org or
call (802) 388-4964.