Unearthed

Chew on This

Chew on This: What’s on Your Plate?

Do you know where your food comes from? When you look down at your plate, do you have a sense where things are grown, harvested, or processed? Recent research from the University of Minnesota shows that younger Americans are twice as likely to care about the origins of their food than earlier generations, but just 24 percent of adults in the United States have trust in information about where food is grown and how it’s produced. We’ve come to care more about what’s on our plate, but don’t often trust information about what we’re eating and where it comes from.

How does this desire to know more about what we’re eating intersect with decision-making around food? While most folks estimate that they make around 15 decisions about food a day, a 2006 study from Cornell University found that people make over 200 decisions about food daily. Far more frequently than we may realize, we think about food and make a choice to consume one thing and not another. So, what values go into food choices? Do you think about access, price, nutritional value, where or how it was grown, or who grew it? What are the impacts of our food choices on ourselves, families, communities, and environments?

Chew on This: Are We Being Good Ancestors?

Immunologist Jonas Salk, credited as inventor of the polio vaccine, was perhaps the first to articulate the question “Are We Being Good Ancestors?,” calling it the most important question we can ask ourselves. Knowing what we do about how current technologies and industries will change the environment long after we’re gone, Salk’s question raises a host of others. What will be humanity’s legacy? What do we owe to future generations? How do we make decisions today with consideration to the inhabitants of an unknown future?

On March 29, we asked the question “Are We Being Good Ancestors?” during a special Unearthed-themed Chew on This. In eight locations around the state where we shared a meal and fun, insightful conversation with other curious Hoosiers. Each table was led by an expert facilitator, someone to help us grapple with questions about humanity’s legacy and how to imagine an uncertain future.

How to Survive the Future

How to Survive the Future is a podcast created by Alex Chambers and Allison Quantz in partnership with Indiana Humanities. Listening parties will be hosted for each of the five episodes.

Campfires

Indiana Humanities has been hosting Campfires across Indiana since 2016 and will continue to invite Hoosiers to explore the connections between literature, nature and the future of Indiana in conjunction with Unearthed.

INconversation

Indiana Humanities’ INconversation engages an intimate group in interesting and insightful conversations with some of the nation’s most intriguing thought-leaders. This highly participatory question-and-answer style discussion involves the thought leader, a moderator and the audience. INconversation is a signature program of Indiana Humanities.

Upcoming INconversations

Join Indiana Humanities on July 17 at Wunderkammer Company in Fort Wayne for “Follow that Food”. This event, featuring local farmers and moderated by Nathan Shoaf, explores local food systems and the journey of food from farm to plate.

Liminal Film Tour

Waterways Films

In 2022, Indiana Humanities hosted a 10-city film tour featuring six short documentary films about Indiana’s waterways. From improving the health of the Blue River to support the hellbender salamander habitat to the fading art of net making, the films explore issues of access and conservation, as well as the unique cultures that spring up around Indiana’s waterways. You can now watch all six films on our website.

Water/Ways

Indiana Humanities sponsored a tour of the Smithsonian’s Water/Ways exhibit during the first year of the Unearthed theme.

Eleven communities hosted the exhibit for six weeks each and received extensive training, funding and other resources from the expert staffs of the Smithsonian and Indiana Humanities. Each of the hosts also curated a unique section of the exhibit that explores their community’s relationship to water.

As part of the Indiana tour, Water/Ways visited the following communities during 2021 and 2022.

North Webster Public Library (North Webster): June 26, 2021–August 7, 2021

La Porte County Soil and Water Conservation District / La Porte County Public Library (Rolling Prairie): August 14, 2021–September 26, 2021

University of Southern Indiana/Historic New Harmony (New Harmony): October 2, 2021–November 14, 2021

Riverscape/Wabash River Development and Beautification, Inc. (West Terre Haute): November 20, 2021–December 30, 2021

Jefferson County Public Library (Madison): January 8, 2022–February 20, 2022

Cope Environmental Center (Centerville): February 26, 2022–April 10, 2022

Cedar Lake Historical Association (Cedar Lake): April 15, 2022-May 22, 2022

Carnegie Public Library of Steuben County (Angola): May 28, 2022-July 17, 2022

Culver Union Township Public Library (Culver): July 23, 2022-September 4, 2022

Switzerland County Tourism Office (Vevay): September 10, 2022-October 23, 2022

Benton County Soil & Water Conservation / Otterbein Public Library (Benton Co.): October 29, 2022-December 11, 2022

Statewide Read

Indiana Humanities’ One State / One Story program invited Hoosiers to engage deeply with a book as part of a statewide conversation tied to the themes of Unearthed. We awarded grants to host a community read of World of Wonders by Aimee Nezhukumatathil selection to organizations around the state.