· The SONIC MEMORIAL Shortly after September 11, NPR's Lost & Found Sound, independent radio producers, new media producers, artists, historicans, and listeners across the country came together to collect and preserve 'sound memories' of the World Trade Center, its neighborhood and the events of September 11. SonicMemorial.org is an online audio archive of hundreds of testimonies and remembrances, music, and small shards of sounds woven into a tapestry of rare humanity. A production of Picture Projects and the Kitchen Sisters, and a collaboration between them and NPR, the 9/11 Digital Archive at Georgetown University, and the Smithsonian Institution. Winner of a 2002 George Foster Peabody Award. I produced the educator's guide and served as managing editor and writer for the social studies curriculum with Robert Snyder at Rutgers University-Newark, Howard Lurie at Facing History and Ourselves, and Kerry Herlihy, a Massachusetts high school teacher.
· DOWNSIDE UP: How art can change the spirit of a place
What happens when an impoverished, working-class town decides that its only hope for survival lies within the world of contemporary art? Can these disparate worlds benefit each other? And why would they even try? "Downside UP" captures the beginnings of America's largest museum of contemporary art, MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) and the rebirth of its host city, North Adams. Through the eyes of filmmaker Nancy Kelly and her family, who worked in the factory before it closed, the film renders the subtle changes in the spirit of a region. "Downside UP" is about the tentative, dangerous notion of hope in a town widely viewed as hopeless.
I organized the community events for the Ford Foundation's "Listening Tour" using the film as a centerpiece for conversation about arts and economic development. I also produced the web site, wrote collateral material about the film, and served as managing editor for the white paper that resulted from the Listening Tour and PBS broadcast.
· The Eat Well Guide is a co-producing of the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy and GRACE (Global Resource Action Center for the Environment), first launched in 2003, focusing on sustainably produced turkey for Thanksgiving. It was introduced to the public with the landmark viral video "The Meatrix," produced by Free Range Graphics, which won numerous awards and crashed the server with over one million hits in the first 24 hours. I was responsible for research and data migration, and served as managing editor for content development. I also organized the outreach campaign.
· MOMbo: A Mom Show is a radio show with an attitude...a weekly half-hour rant about motherhood—the joy, frustration, thrill and exhaustion of raising children while still trying to keep track of oneself. The weekly program is archived on WebActive. Quarterly specials produced and hosted by Nanci Olesen include the A MOMbo New Year: Revelry and Reflection.
