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  • From: Scott Vlaun <scott@moosepondarts.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] communication
  • Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2006 20:39:30 -0500

I have to say that after all of this back and forth on these lists, I am deeply heartened by the fact that so many intelligent people are so passionate about Permaculture.

I also find Mitch's point (on the Pc international list) to be an important one . How good is the PR of the Pc movement? And how effectively can we communicate the principles to a larger audience? My professional background is a university education in art and photography. My BFA was from a small art school in the early eighties was very bauhaus-based and design centric. it was around the same time that I became interested in "self sufficiency" and "autonomous houses" and organic gardening and found my art/design background useful in those pursuits. My MFA is from a large university and was very theoretical and based somewhat in semiotics, (i.e. how meaning is formed by various types of language.) It also involved an ongoing critique of how language and image are used to manipulate popular culture.

When I started photographing and writing for an organic seed company 12 years ago, I realized that the "organic movement" needed to utilize the same visible and written language skills to communicate as the corporate power structure that could sell Ice to a Polar bear (which we might have to do soon!) It was at this time that I was introduced to permaculture, and when I interviewed Bill Mollison a few years later, I realized that it was perhaps the most-articulated set of principles to tie together many of the concepts that I had been interested in for most of my adult life.

Seven years ago I partnered up with a graphic designer, and besides trying to develop our own permaculture-inspired site, we are developing a ( just the word makes be cringe) marketing (sort of) business and trying to help give voice to projects that might lead to a more sustainable future, the Seeds of Change catalog and website being the largest thing we've tackled. We are trying to synthesize everything from graphic design, writing and photography, to local organic agriculture, green building and intentional community, to bring about change locally and an a broader scale. Sometimes it's frustrating and I'd much rather be in the forest, or gardening, or building something real, but the communication aspect seems so essential. Bill Mollison told me that it will take all kinds of people with all kinds of skills to work together to bring about real change. The communication component will be just as essential as teh technological and spiritual. It's lifetimes of work and something that none of us will ever fully realize, but it seems like it all has to come together to really bring about the change that we all hope and work for.

I so appreciate all the work that all the people on the various Pc lists are doing and greatly encourage all to find common ground and to bring this philosophy to the world in whatever way we can.

In peace and solidarity,

Scott Vlaun
Moose Pond Arts+Ecology
Design Solutions for a Sustainable Future

35 Moose Pond Road
Otisfield, Maine 04270
207-739-2409 Studio
207-890-4099 Cell






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