Episode 57: Matthew Fluharty - Art of the Rural - Chapter 1

Matthew Fluharty is a curious, thoughtful, passionate, humble dot connector who asks as many questions of himself as he does of the cosmos in his roles as a poet, essayist, curator, and policy wonk. The Art of the Rural, the organization he founded in 2010, is at the forefront of the story liberation movement.

BIO

Matthew is the Founder and Executive Director of Art of the Rural, a member of M12 Studio, and faculty on the Rural Environments Field School. His work flows between the fields of art, design, humanities, policy, and community development.

His poetry and essays have been published widely, and his work with his colleagues in the American Bottom region of the Mississippi River has been featured in Art in America. Matthew is the organizing curator for High Visibility: On Location in Rural America and Indian Country, a longterm collaboration with the Plains Art Museum. He recently received a Curatorial Fellowship from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for this ongoing work.

Born into a seventh-generation farming family in Appalachian Ohio, Matthew’s upbringing instilled a belief that everyday, multigenerational knowledge can teach us about where have been, where we are, and where we might be going. Those lessons led him to take vows with the Zen Garland Order, a community that is a part of what’s known as the Socially Engaged Buddhist movement.

Website // Email // Twitter // Instagram // LinkedIn

Notable Mentions

Art of the Rural: Founded in 2010, Art of the Rural is a decentered, collaborative organization that works to forward knowledge sharing, network gathering, and rural-urban exchange. 

High Visibility is a longterm, collaborative partnership between Art of the Rural, Plains Art Museum, and individuals & organizations across the continent. Through exhibitions, publications, and place-based programs, our aim over time is to boldly reframe the narrative on rural America and Indian Country and to welcome sustained rural-urban exchange. Plains Art Museum.

 American Bottom Project: As a specific geography, the American Bottom has seen a history of human settlement, ecological transformation, and social convergence that we truly find singular in the American context. At the same time, as a typical geography, the American Bottom picks up on patterns that might be recognizable at the divided urban periphery of every large American city at the beginning of the 21st century. And it is to both these registers—the specific and the general—that we hope this project speaks. Mounds UNESCO heritage site 

Winona/Dakota Unity Alliance: Mission - Creating sustainable alliances among indigenous Nations and the Winona community with a mutual understanding that we are all related.

Appalshop: is a media, arts, and education center located in Whitesburg, Kentucky, in the heart of the southern Appalachian region of the United States. 

Roadside Theater was founded in the coalfields of central Appalachia in 1975 as part of Appalshop, which had begun six years earlier as a War on Poverty/Office of Economic Opportunity youth job training

Ben Fink was the lead organizer of the Performing Our Future coalition and former/founding organizer of the Letcher County Culture Hub. He works at Roadside Theater, a part of Appalshop, a grassroots cultural and media organization in the east Kentucky coalfields. Good Friday Agreement. He is profiled in Change the Story / Change the World Episodes 17 and 18.  

Gaeltacht: are the districts of Ireland, individually or collectively, where the Irish government recognises that the Irish language is the predominant vernacular, or language of the home.[1] The Gaeltacht districts were first officially recognised during the 1920s in the early years of the Irish Free State, following the Gaelic Revival, as part of a government policy aimed at restoring the Irish language.[2] says this in his poem 

The Archaic Torso of Apollo.by Rainer Maria Rilke

Rainer Maria Rilke was an Austrian poet and novelist. He is "widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets".[

In our conversation with Matthew we'll hear about some of that work, like High Visibility, a partnership with the Plains museum, which aims to reframe the prevailing narrative that defines rural America and Indian country. And the American Bottom Project, which explores the geography, history people and stories of the vast floodplain of the east St. Louis region at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi. A socially and environmentally fractured landscape. where the Cahokia Mounds UNESCO heritage site abuts, a Superfund site, where the first incorporated African-American town in the U.S. abuts, the site of the country's most notorious race riot, and where a powerful Mississippi River flows disconnected from its still vital flood plain.

Needless to say there's a lot to learn. So listen up. This is Change the Story. Change the World. My name is Bill Cleveland.

Part One: Stewarding

[00:02:09] BC: I'm good. Very good. Where are you? Winona?

BC: One, one of my favorite places of all time.

[00:03:02] BC: You know, I lived in Minnesota for 13 years, we did the Perpich Center, Artist/Educator, gathering, for about eight years, and four of them were in Winona. It was a statewide open space technology gathering of 250 crazy people for five days, basically, using the facilities there, in that old convent throwing pots, arguing, singing songs. Fabulous moment in history, I think.

[00:03:35] BC: So it was really a big sort of Woodstock summer event yeah, the history those things come and go but it's, it was one of the most important things I've ever been a part of—- really extraordinary. And you know, the interesting thing about it is that if you looked at who came, right? I'd say 60% of the people who came to that were from small school districts around the state,

[00:04:00] BC: For obvious reasons — to connect with their colleagues and, break bread, and act a little crazy outside of the bubble of their little universes. it was wonderful.

BC: one small story. we got in our ideas that one of the nights for the meal, that, because it was open space, are you familiar with open space and how that works? So one of the sessions was we're gonna cook dinner for 250 people.

[00:05:04] MF: There was a live chicken in the sculpture that then was fired?

BC: No, not a live one. No, a dead chicken in the sculpture, from the kitchen, from the refrigerator. Yeah.

MF: Whoa.

[00:05:17] MF: Wait, but like it would be edible. Like you could eat it.

BC: Oh, are you kidding me? If some of the best chicken you're ever gonna eat? Absolutely.

[00:05:28] BC: Yeah, a lot of fun.

So Matthew, first of all, thank you for doing this. Your work is extraordinary and it's broad based and you've touched a lot of people. And, and I'm probably along with you, one of those people who believes in off center

…as where the sparks happen with the least encumbrance. You get surprised nicely in those kind of places. So, I'm enamored of those environments and you have spent your life cultivating them. So, when you're sitting around the table maybe with a couple of distant relatives who are wondering, “What's Matt been up to and in his life? How do you describe what you do in the world?

I think, especially with Art of the Rural or some of the collaborations, I'm a part of, there never is like a conclusion to any of it, folks working together towards something. And I think one of the, hooks, that's, that's always been helpful for me when explaining our work, is that its very place and land based, which is a value that a lot of folks share. There’s just that work of trying to honor the land. And I think just be in the field. I think the field is a powerful metaphor for my family, you know. You have Angus cattle in the field, you have tomatoes in the field, but a kind of care taking that happens, with folks in work.

And I think the other bit I think that helps a lot when I share this work with family and friends, is really focusing on the cultural piece. Like art is a really, For so many reasons, a really challenging word.

That kind of connective tissue that we all build together in a community. I mean, even if that's not what folks are maybe primarily interested in, in their life, there's something that attracts people to how other folks work together and tell their stories.

BC: So when you're sitting down with folks and they're asking. “Hey, Matt. I know what you're up to has something to do with art and artists? How do you make the translation so that they don't think you're trying to establish a branch of the Met in some small Missouri town?

Do you know what I mean? And like you go into this space and you create something and, you don't really give a damn what it means to anyone. because the other thing attached to it is that somehow artists are, making tremendous amounts of money and are enraptured by the art world and the market and all of that.

And I think for me, where you can kind of push the bookcase and find a hallway in between the walls, I think so much of the art that we love itself is stewarding culture, and is stewarding generational memory, is stewarding stewarding memory of place. Certainly there's a lot of art that doesn't do that, but I think the artists that we have worked with, uh, with Art of the Rural and some of the stories that we've tried to share, I think have kind of hovered over that kind of space I think some of our more recent work, like the High Visibility initiative with the Plains Art Museum.

So I'm your, your uncle that you don't know very well, and I'm saying okay, “social”, “community”. I get that. I live in a small town. All right. Give me an example.

Perhaps the most extreme example of what, what, you're bill as an ongoing project we're working on with, a series of artists, including Jesse Vogler and, um, Jen Colton in the American Bottom, which is the east St. Louis flood plain.

And when I think about the Ohio valley, where I'm from, Appalachia, the upper Midwest, I think something that typifies those regions that filters down to this idea of sitting across from your uncle at, at a family meal, and that person kind of asking like, “Well, what the hell are you doing? like, what is the meaning of this? How do I find a connection point?” Folks want connection points. I think we often don't give folks enough credit for the ways that they're seeking to connect to the work and to the artwork.

But the American Bottom is this region that's right across from river from St. Louis. It's half urban, it's half rural. It's essentially an enormous extractive zone for St. Louis. You know, folks, maybe in the, in the, upper Midwest would see Gary Indiana has that kind of relationship with Chicago.

An extreme example that, that I could offer of this was from the American Bottom with a town called Sauget. You know, if you passed interstate 70 through St. Louis, but in a car and you're heading east, you're crossing into Illinois, like what you're crossing into is the American Bottom, the flood plane there, and the town that is just your right, just south of the bridge, Interstate 64 is Sauget, which used to be called Monsanto town. It was where the Monsanto chemical works began.

[00:13:03] MF: But if you live there, there's no… like, where do you go? It's a fragmented story. There aren't books. Until we began working out there, there wasn't even sort of a website. The work that we did with folks in Sauget and with some of their neighbors across that region was to make a community newspaper that shared the lived experiences of what folks were just experiencing there, but like connected that to those kinds of historical stories, like the kind of stories that, like me explaining something to my uncle would lead into. Like you go from “You know, we're, we're videotaping, the the corn harvest this year, but the corn harvest leads into a story about somebody's grandpa and leads into a story about when settlers came to this region that opens up all this space. And, that's like a process.

I really trust that one thing can lead to another if, um, you're sitting across the table from your uncle and you just trust that it can open up without forcing it,

There are a thousand stories being woven there. And, so in a sense, it feels like what you're saying is, there's a, a natural resource here. We're going to harvest it and make it available and let it do its work naturally because it, it doesn't need a heck of a lot of fertilizer it's already there. It just needs a space.

Like something like radically defamiliarizing does happen, but it happens through the, the, the passion and the agency of those folks as opposed to it being kind of imposed on them by something. If, if that makes sense.

Part Three: The Second Hill

So Matthew. In a wounded social ecosystem, like the American Bottom, I know from my own experience, what you're up to can be a very delicate undertaking. It really makes sense that you're taking your time in that community. Could you say a bit more about how you came to this way of working?

[00:17:14] BC: And so this is English literature? Is that where you are?

But look, the, I think one of the orientations that I take to this work, to come back to the question is, just like in studying literature, and for me it was studying 20th century literature, and looking at it from a rural perspective, which was, at the time, it was very novel that I was doing it, you know, asking questions about what the place of rural land and culture and economy was.

But, one, one of the things that, know, my advisors, Gwen Baton and Dylan Johnston, really taught me through this process, I mean, on one hand was trusting my rural roots, which by no means is that's something that the academy ever truly endorses. And perhaps it's changed, but my experience of it wasn't that way. But, to trust that, but then to simply ask what are the ways in which our town is talking about itself and being talked about beyond itself, and how through simply just sitting with folks, hearing their stories, coming up with collaborative work, you know, are we serving those values?

[00:19:10] BC: But one of the things and maybe you take it for granted because this is your practice, but, nine outta ten folks who are interested in what you just said, probably couldn't pull it off. And it's because it's about trust. In the same way that when you sit across the table from a vet, somebody like me who did not serve has only so far I can go. And so, trust is not something that is negotiated. It's something that is built and earned and and is cultural. It's more cultural than it is intellectual for sure. And for whatever it's worth, your love of what you're talking about matters probably more than your PhD.

[00:20:17] MF: You're talking about, like for me, the touchpoint is, it's Roadside (Theater) side and Appalshop. It goes back way further than that. and that there, there's a tradition that folks can draw upon such that like they can be sitting across from the uncle or, a veteran who lives in their community and do that work with responsibility and trust and dignity for everyone involved.

You're like of laying out here Bill, probably every two or three weeks for about a year and a half, I would like just get an email from somebody who lived in an urban area who wasn't connected necessarily to the rural work, who wanted to come to a rural area, to find commonality, to discover what rural people want.

They were pitched as artistic projects, but it was as if they wanted to look at culture inside of a Petri dish. And there has been, like, so much of that in the last four years. And I think the visibility around that is, is enormously important. But we've all heard how it's gone wrong and it's gone wrong because of this question of trust.

BC: So here's an interesting parallel universe. One of the gifts of my spending more than a decade working in the California Department of Corrections was learning how to operate in a world where the kumbaya option was just not available. My, my partners, so to speak, the people I was negotiating with were wardens of large correctional institutions and all their staff. And they taught me something. I have, I’ve tried to share in my own teaching through what I think is the threshold question needs to be asked in any attempt at partnership across difference.

So, I’ll ask my students. “If you're going to do a joint project. Do all the partners need to be on the same page and agree upfront on the same ideological, philosophical, moral, ethical value systems.”

And most people who have not been in this work very long say, “Well, yeah, of course.” But, what they don't know is that this is the rough landscape of the work. To understand and respect that coming together is probably not going to happen, you know, the way you think on your terms. Common ground, of course can be, it is often found. But you have to make it, you have to build it out of some experience you have together in the trenches. Like Ben Fink, who describes in rural Kentucky, you know, “We’ve got to dig a ditch together before we have a conversation about practically anything.” And I don't think that's rural or urban. I, I think it's human and, as you know, uh, on the farm. that trust is not just an agreement to be nice to each other. It's showing up and being accountable in the work every day, because so much depends on it. Right. It's just not an option.

Which brings me around to another question that I have for you. How in the hell did you get from hanging out with Angus cattle out in the field to an interest in, and obsession with, and a PhD, in Irish literature.

00:25:18] BC: Yes, I was there then.

[00:25:29] BC: I do too.

And County Donegal isn't Appalachia where I'm from, but you can kind of squint your eyes and you start to see things, And just that, again, I was outta my element, but I saw where I was from in Appalachian, in Ohio and in, in a really different light, I think because of that experience.

And so I lived across the Midwest, know, from the time I was in second grade, pretty much until I went to Ireland. So I saw a lot, and it was interesting simply to be in a place like County Donegal in the Gaeltacht which tradition was really deep and it was everywhere. This goes back to the question about, sitting across from your uncle.

It was, it was in every, it was in the food culture, it was everywhere. and what drew me to my own poetry writing, but also to Irish poetry, were the ways in which tradition and place and land were just so central to the work, And in particular, it was just moving to me, the ways in which the poets and musicians and artists in Ireland, they're held in a really deep place of honor.

I was writing poetry about the farm in Appalachian, Ohio, so there was always this analog to what I was studying and I had a chance to go to a conference probably in 2005, that was in Virginia and was looking at rural culture and community development. And what drew me to it was that like a number of the Appalshop films were going to be shown there. And there was gonna be like a day trip to Appalshop. and I think, for folks who grew up in more of a, a full internet age, as children, it's, the thing I try to share is there was a time, when these things were not visible, cuz that was always interesting, these questions around just what is rural culture like?

What is happening on this continent right now? But Appalshop was there and Appalshop had a website, and I had the chance to go to this conference and to see a number of the Appalshop films, which was just like so powerful to me. and just that words almost don't approximate how powerful it was.

And then we went on the bus tour and got to see Appalshop and Whitesburg and meet a number of the folks, meet some of the filmmakers. And I think a thing that I seek in my work that I really hope that we can help create the conditions for with folks, just the moments where the dots in the sky become connected into a constellation and they're being at Appalshop. like it really happened for me and I saw these folks working together to tell the really hard stories about what it was like where they were. And, to do that across film and theater and radio and books and through, the community partnerships that Appalshop has just been so incredible in our field and achieving with so many people. And it was a really overwhelming experience, in a place where I still was just trying to reckon with what does it mean to be where I'm from?

And that really was the point where I just started to get a little more serious about, what are the connections here between this thing I'm studying and, the places I'm from that I value.

[00:32:09] BC: Wow.

BC: To me its not so strange, that our stories meanders and arc, and often return to a new place that is both and end and a beginning. Which is what we are about to do with the end of Chapter 1 of the Art of the Rural story, and its continuation in two weeks with Chapter 2 where we will hear more about Sauget, the importance and danger of nostalgia, crushed beer cans, and the amazing story of Family Video.

Change the story change. The world is a production of the center for the study of art and community. It's written and hosted by me, Bill Cleveland, our theme and soundscape are by these stupendously talented Judy Munson. Our text editing is by Andre Nnebe, our sound effects come from free sound.com and our inspiration rises up from the spectral and lurking presence of UKE235. If you have any comments to share or suggestions for guests, drop us a line at C S A C @ artandcommunity.com. Until next time stay well, do good and spread the good word.