#25DaysFor25Years Week 4: The Art of Sustainability
Today is the final day of our #25DaysFor25Years campaign, and we are so honored to have looked back through our history and dreamed of the future over this past month with all of you. We dream of a sustainable future full of art, joy, friendship, and abundance… and that world is possible with our community by our side.
Join us tonight for the final live event of our 25-day celebration– The Art of Sustainability: Braiding Art & Culture, Food & Community. This panel will feature artists and activists from the Pangea circle around the country as they have a conversation about the future of this work. Sustainability, as we’ve talked about this week, is a necessary part of these plans for the future that we have been dreaming of throughout our #25DaysFor25Years campaign. Tune in as we discuss how to sustain the communities we are working with and create not just an equitable future, but a beautiful future– for everyone.
Meet the Panelists
Suzanne Nash (Ojibwe) she has worked at Indigenous Peoples Task Force for 18 years in many capacities, She the Housing Director, Program Manager for the youth tobacco program and the Indigi-Baby program, Suzanne has facilitated and coordinated tobacco prevention, cessation, education and policy work with 11 tribes in Minnesota and the urban area For the past 16 years, has organized and facilitated statewide conferences around tobacco, cultural teachings, traditional foods, environmental issues and policy work and a Policy Champion on Tobacco Control and a LAAMPP Alumnae.
Ruhel Islam is the owner of Curry in a Hurry and was the owner and Executive Chef, an award-winning Bangladeshi/Indian restaurant dedicated to embodying environmental sustainability and the peaceful principles of Gandhi until it was destroyed in the uprising of summer 2021. Ruhel has served as the President of Lake Street Council, Board of Directors of Green Card Voices and currently serves on the Board of Longfellow Rising and Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light. He has also appeared on the Food Networks Diner's, Drive-In's & Dives as well as Guy's Grocery Games.
Brandi Turner, born in Michigan and raised in New Orleans, LA and Oxford, MS. She is an active member of the Utica and Raymond, MS community. Brandi has an extensive career in cosmetic retail sales and management, while expanding her practice of freelance makeup artistry, as well as, a creative practice of welcoming people into space through the presentation of culinary arts.
Brandi Turner is the Co-Founder and Co-Director for the Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (MCCP), best known as Sipp Culture in Utica, MS. Mississippi Center for Cultural Production is an organization taking a place-based approach to holistic community development utilizing digital media, agriculture and cultural products to promote the legacy and vision of it’s community. She is also the Managing Director of TWA Consulting, a firm that provides services in creative consulting for organizations looking to strengthen their work in arts and culture.
Brandi resides in Utica, MS with her husband Carlton Turner and their three children, Jonathan, Xiauna, and Tristan.
Carlton Turner is an artist, agriculturalist, arts advocate, policy shaper, lecturer, consultant, and facilitator. Carlton is the founder of the Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Sipp Culture). Sipp Culture uses arts and agriculture to support rural community, cultural, and economic development in his hometown of Utica, Mississippi where he lives with his wife Brandi and three children.
Sharon M. Day, Ojibwe* is the Executive Director and one of the founder’s of the
Indigenous Peoples Task Force (IPTF), formerly known as the Minnesota
American Indian AIDS Task Force.
She is an artist, musician, and writer. She has performed at Illusion Theater, The
American History Theater, Pangea World Theater, Spiderwoman Theater and for
performances at the Ordway, the Guthrie and others. Her writings have been
published in journals and anthologies. She has scripted several plays for
Ikidowin Youth Theater and this piece, the Missouri River Water Walk had a
staged reading at Pangea World Theater in 2019.
An environmental activist, she has led over 20 Water Walks since 2011, to offer
prayers for these rivers. These rivers include the Mississippi, the Missouri, the
Ohio and the James River in Virginia.
Acknowledgements for her work include the Resourceful Woman Award, the
Gisela Knopka Award, BIHA’s Women of Color Award, The National Native
American AIDS Prevention Resource Center’s Red Ribbon Award, the Alston
Bannerman Sabbatical Award. The Governor of the State of Minnesota, and the
mayors of both St. Paul and Minneapolis named November 10, 1998 after her:
Sharon M. Day, Day. She is one of the Spirit Aligned Leadership Fellows.
She is an editor of the anthology, Sing! Whisper! Shout! Pray! Feminist Visions
for a Just World: Edgework Books, 2000. She is also one of two contributors to
Drink of the Winds, Let the Waters Flow Free, Johnson Institute, 1978.
Meena Natarajan is a playwright and director and the Executive and Artistic Director of Pangea World Theater, a progressive, international ensemble space that creates at the intersection of art, equity and social justice. She has led the theater’s growth since it’s founding in 1995. Meena has co-curated and designed many of Pangea World Theater’s professional and community based programs. She has written at least ten full-length works for Pangea, ranging from adaptations of poetry and mythology to original works dealing with war, spirituality, personal and collective memory. Meena leads ensemble-based processes in Pangea that lead to works produced for the stage. She has also directed and dramaturged several original theater and performance art pieces. She is currently on the board of the Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists and is a National Theater Project Advisor at New England Foundation for the Arts. She was on the Advisory Committee of the Community Arts Network, was on the founding board of the Network of Ensemble Theaters and was the president of Women’s Playwrights International between 2000-2003. She has been awarded grants from the Theatre Communications Group, Playwrights Center and the Minnesota State Arts Board. She was recently awarded the Visionary Award for mid-career leaders from the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits.
Last Day to Give
This work that has been showcased over the last 25 days is sustained by generous community members like you. As we finish out our official celebration, today is the final day to make a contribution as we all dream towards #Another25Years.
Put your passion for justice and sustainability into action
by making a gift to Pangea TODAY.
Last Day to Bid
Our silent auction is still live until tonight at 11:59PM CST! There are dozens of items that still could be yours. You can place your bids today on experiences like a private dinner with our Co-Artistic Directors Meena and Dipankar, tickets to the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, or a self-care kit from Kalm Korner.
When you place a bid on an item, you directly support this work that builds towards a more sustainable future for Minneapolis and beyond.