The Rural We: Adam Sher
The Falls Village, Conn. resident talks about creating the Small Town, Big Talk exhibit on view at the David M. Hunt Library.
“Small Town, Big Talk” is an interactive exhibition opening March 12 at the David M. Hunt Library art wall in Falls Village, Conn. Adam Sher is one of the creators of the project, along with his wife Meg Sher and photographer Rebecca Bloomfield. Formerly the general manager and managing director of retreats at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center in Falls Village, Sher is an educator and community organizer. We asked him to tell us about the genesis and development of Small Town, Big Talk.
For the past few years, I’d been speaking with Rebecca Bloomfield and my wife, Meg, about what this community has to offer and what it needs in the context of wider societal breakdown and the polarization that we’ve seen. Falls Village is a microcosm of America. It’s the kind of place where people keep their doors unlocked. We know everybody. That’s really sweet, but at the same time, you have the sense that you rarely get beyond small talk with people. The depth of who the people are is sometimes hard to access. Maybe that’s because we don’t have those outlets in our normal community life to say what we really think.
Adam Sher interviews Judy Jacobs. Photo: Rebecca Bloomfield
A couple of years ago Falls Village participated in The People’s Supper, which was sort of an organized potluck that was a structure for discussion. We wanted to revisit that. We knew that with Covid, it might be difficult to do, but really necessary. It was the summer, coming up to the presidential election, and there were also charged local elections. We needed to come together as a community. The Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation gave us a grant from their Bridging Divides, Healing Communities fund that really made it possible for us to do this project.
Small Town, Big Talk is a group of 23 portraits and interviews with people in Falls Village. We put out a public call and told people if they were interested in participating, to contact us. We made sure we had a nice spread of folks, and set up outdoor interviews. Rebecca had her camera and I had my recorder. We came up with several “big talk” questions to engage the subject’s world views and personal philosophies. Like: What are your hopes for Falls Village and the wider world? What’s a belief you hold that’s changed over time?
After we did the interviews, we sorted through all the photos and listened to all the recordings over many evenings. We tried to pull out about five lines from each 20-40 minute interview. We wanted to create an artifact that captured the work as a whole. It’s like the town is speaking.
There will be 23 photographs and accompanying interviews on the walls at the library, and then the last portrait on the wall will be a mirror, so the viewer can be part of the project. There will be an opportunity for each visitor to submit answers that will be put on a rotating video.
We decided to create a small book of the exhibit for people who want to walk away with something, and we’ll be doing an artist talk in early April. I hope that when people view the exhibition, they are inspired to have big talks in their own lives.
Small Town, Big Talk runs through May 28.
