THE VOICES PROJECT
Principal Founders

JULIE A. AVERY
Curator of Rural Life and Culture, Michigan State University Museum
Julie Avery’s work utilizes agricultural heritage to educate and inform the public about the past and contemporary agriculture and rural life issues. Dr. Avery has curated museum and traveling exhibitions, developed public programs, and produced a television documentary and two books focusing on agriculture and rural life and culture.
 
BARBARA CARLISLE  (1938–2007)
Professor Emeritus, Theatre Arts, Virginia Tech
A writer, producer, and director, Dr. Carlisle worked for 40 years building connections between the arts, education and communities. She has many years experience teaching and training writers for stage and screen. Her long-established work in community and regional theatre and her later work in video utilizes community voices speaking for themselves. As a writer and director she has created pieces which bring a variety of voices and experience to the stage. Carlisle is nationally recognized for her leadership in education, theatre, and women’s studies.

CYNTHIA VAGNETTI
Independent Scholar and graduate student in Writing Rhetoric and Composition, Michigan State University
Cynthia Vagnetti, nationally known interviewer, documentary photographer, and visual storyteller has applied field-based disciplines from oral history, ethnography, and journalism to “find the story” and acquire primary source materials on farmers and ranchers. Ms. Vagnetti creates partnerships to produce projects for civil discourse through the arts and for public television, radio, and Web. Her primary source collection, Voices from the Field, is forthcoming in video and book. She is an educational speaker on women, food production and consumption, and their relationship to the land.