Vision

Mission

In Situ Polyculture Commons (ISPC) is a nonprofit arts residency, commons, and cultural catalyst located in Southeastern Vermont, on unceded Abenaki land. We champion the meaningful intersection of creativity, ecology and cultivating cultural resilience.

We support the creative lives and wellbeing of artists, build opportunities for making lasting connections and relationships to place and context, design programming that connects people with the material world and helps us to re-skill in haptic ways, and steward diverse and nourishing commons committed to regenerative practices.

We aim to educate and inspire other organizations and people by our examples.

We value creative expression, interdependence, regenerative culture, and building resilience. We strive to operate within the frameworks of mutualism and collaboration. We directly support artists and other organizations whose missions are dedicated to the arts, social equity and justice, education and ecology and conservation. We strive to make positive contributions and opportunities for our local culture and regional economy, as well as opportunities for restful retreat for visitors.

We are interested in not just what feeds us, but what nourishes us, and how; art, food, and community.

ISPC is a catalyst for a radically different cultural framework that celebrates artists, art, and the bountiful blending of humans with all other terrestrials. We support artists. We trust artists. We insist on the recognition that culture-making and creativity always happens in a particular context of time and place. We challenge the cultural institutions of the scarcity mindset and competition, and instead seek to collaborate, share and create mutually beneficial systems. We refuse the nature/culture dichotomy.

Generosity and Solidarity or bust! (We would rather be in full integrity, creating the world we want to live in and share –or fail, trying!)

Our work influences other cultural institutions and individuals to reconsider the nature of privately-held land and individual actions vs. commons and collective practice. Our long term vision includes placing artists and culture makers in more unexpected places, inspiring novel uses of private or commodified spaces, and connecting community with the art that feeds it. We emphasize the power of collective or collaborative creative work, and empower collaborative groups to come together. We operate within our principles of collaboration, not competition, and inspire others to do the same. More soon!

Ecological Impact Ethos

We as an institution are at an intersection of many large webs and networks: art infrastructures local, regional, and global, the ecology of the land we are on (Abenaki land) and the land our partners are on, the local economy, the global economy, etc. Everything we do at In Situ inherently ripples out to all of our interdependent relations.

As much as possible, we aim to cause minimal harm to folk, flora, fauna, and land, and at the same time we strive to benefit as many of those others as we can. We focus on the impact our programming has on our neighbors and local economy as well as our distant allies and friends.

Here on campus that looks like: composting on-site and practicing regenerative horticulture; reducing and eliminating non-recyclable and non-reusable wastes as much as possible; teaching residents and visitors about “green” alternatives to common art materials and cleaning agents; and more. It means planting flowers in the garden that benefit local pollinators as much as they may supply fresh tea or cooking herbs to resident visitors. It looks like raking leaves instead of using a leaf blower. It means passing on ethical, mindful foraging guidelines when teaching about making inks or gathering ingredients for meals.

Administratively, it looks like advocating for slow resident travel and use of carpool, trains, and rideshares when possible, responding to the needs of visitors and residents with care, using trauma-informed practices for communication, advocacy, and education, and more.