History & Mission
Founded in 1984, Vermont Folklife is a nationally-known education and cultural research nonprofit that uses ethnography—the study of cultural experience through interviewing, participation and observation—to strengthen the understanding of the cultural and social fabric of Vermont's diverse communities.
Vermont Folklife’s mission is to deepen our understanding of each other by engaging with communities across the state to document and share everyday expressions of tradition, innovation, and culture.
The realization of Vermont Folklife’s organizational mission begins with fieldwork. Our team of folklorists, anthropologists, and ethnomusicologists conduct as many as 100 interviews per year, using ethnographic research methodologies that yield content for Web-based audio, radio broadcast, public presentations, documentary exhibits, and education programs and curricula, as well as building our archival collection with firsthand accounts that capture living memory and document both present and past experience.
These primary research materials and stories, as well as the resulting community partnerships are channeled into our other main areas of work: the Archive, Educational programming, supporting Vermont’s Living Traditions, and creating public-facing media, such as exhibits, the Vermont Untapped Podcast, and more.
Read our 2024 Impact Report, Vermont Folklife at 40, to learn about our recent programs, partnerships, and accomplishments.
Areas of Work
Our Starting Point: Collaborative Ethnographic Research
All of Vermont Folklife’s activities stem from our extensive research with individuals and communities throughout the state of Vermont. This fieldwork comes in many forms, from community-led projects, to contract work for other organizations around the state. As we develop exhibits and workshops based on the needs and interests we discover through our field work and the interviews in our archive, we interview the new individuals we meet, and the cycle begins again.
Archive
Vermont Folklife's state-of-the-art, climate-controlled archive houses more than 65,000 taped audio and video interviews and 20,000 historic and contemporary photographs, plus transcripts, field notes, family memoirs, and musical recordings.
Education
We offer quarterly workshops in collaborative ethnography, interviewing, and community-driven media-making, as well as custom workshops and classes for organizations and schools. We also have rich classroom resources available for teachers and students
Living Traditions
We support Vermonters as they practice and pass on traditional art forms that are vital and relevant to their communities. The Vermont Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program, which celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2022, supports master artists in passing on traditional art forms to a new generation. Young Tradition Vermont encourages youth to explore, learn, and perform traditional music and dance.
Vision & Voice
The Vision & Voice program is how we share collaborative ethnographic work going on around Vermont with the public. We create at least one new exhibit a year from our fieldwork and partnerships with other researchers, which travels around the state to various galleries, libraries, and museums. We also produce the VTUntapped Podcast, and regularly partner with local cartoonists to share the diversity of experiences in Vermont through comics.
