Spirit in Action

Mesoamerica Resiste: Beyond Colonialism

Tyler Norman and The Beehive Collective are tackling the big issues, like globalization, climate change, and the danger of extinction in creative and decentralized ways. Grown out of the anti-WTO movements and with an eye to encouraging, energizing methods of spurring change, an important approach to spreading the word has been super-sized graphic creations which empower alternative story-telling. Their largest project to-date has been Mesoamerica Resiste.

Duration:: 55m
Broadcast on:: 26 Oct 2014
Audio Format:: other

[music] Let us sing this song for the healing of the world That we may hear as one With every voice, with every song We will move this world along And our lives will feel the echo of our healing [music] Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpes Me. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives Of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, Creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service Hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred food in your own life. Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world That we may dream as one With every voice, with every song We will move this world along On October 13, 2014, sometimes called Columbus Day, I attended a presentation called Questioning Columbus By a member of the Beehive Design Collective Using two enormous graphic creations, essentially traveling murals of amazing intricacy Tyler Norman shared stories and alternate visions About free trade, militarization, and corporate colonialism in the Americas The graphics are called Mesoamerica Resiste And they represent a dynamic and creative effort to educate and motivate the world So I sat down with Tyler Norman at the home of his hosts The Progressive Valley Co-op to talk about the project The stories represented in Mesoamerica Resiste and the Beehive Design Collective Since we're talking about a visual experience, I've also put some images And a PowerPoint presentation on northernspiritradio.org So you can catch a glimpse of this amazing project Tyler joins me in person at the Progressive Valley Co-op in Eau Claire, Wisconsin Tyler, I'm completely excited to have you here today for Spirit and Action Great, thanks for having me Mark I really appreciated your non-Columbus Day presentation You're going around right now as part of the Beehive Design Collective We're doing these presentations across how many states, how many cities, for how long? I've been on the road for about 3 weeks now, I have another week and a half to go I've been through Illinois and Missouri and Nebraska and Iowa and Minnesota And now I'm back to Wisconsin for the last week and a half of my two I'm mostly going to spend that time in Milwaukee And then after that I'm going to fly to India, but maybe we'll get to that later Slide 2 The presentation that you were doing was on this massive graphic creation Mesoamerica Reziste Talk about the genesis of this project and where it fits in the big picture of Beehive Design Collective So the Beehive Collective started around 2000 Sort of this group of artists who were hoping to make art that would make change in the world And over the years we've done different things But what we're best known for is these big portable murals That tell stories Slide 3 You can also sort of think of it as a giant elaborate political cartoon That's like the size of a textbook We've made them about issues of globalization in the Americas Especially we've recently made one about mountaintop removal coal mining In the Appalachian Mountains here in the U.S. That was one that has gotten us a lot of attention in the last few years Slide 4 And then the one that was most recently completed, Mesoamerica Reziste Is all about what people in Central America are doing to resist Especially what indigenous people are doing to protect their land And their communities and their culture from globalization Corporate takeovers of different kinds Especially industrial development projects That are seizing their resources in their land but don't benefit them at all We use these picture stories as tools to hold people's attention And help to explain complicated topics Like the history of colonization and how that is still ongoing today But we just have different words for it, like globalization and corporate rights And free trade and things like that And then one of the key things about our graphics is that they all use these Fable style animal characters Which is really interesting because it helps people We can talk about these tricky, complicated and oftentimes heavy issues In these symbolic archetype sort of terms Which means we can even talk with young kids about them I've done presentations in elementary schools at times And it's been really interesting and fruitful And the kids have learned a lot And then adults also like them too It's fun, it's like a fun way to learn about hard things And it's also great because we're able to talk about biodiversity And connect with all of our non-human neighbors who we often forget about At the same time as we're talking about these things that people do And people are affected by So we're essentially trying to give people different perspectives To look at the world and different eyes to see it through So that they can get a different understanding We tell stories to create meaning And we reframe some of the big narratives Like for example Columbus and colonization And look at it in a different way which creates a different meaning To the history that we have And can sort of paint a whole different picture of what the world is And how it works and things like that I think it'd be really good if you gave us an example of that Just drawing on Miss America, Resiste When I heard you speaking on the 13th of October You'd have slides up there and show us you'd zoom in On various portions of this immense graphic That was hanging before us in the front of the room If you did some of that storytelling I think it would really help people get an idea So I want to let folks know that you can just follow along With the PowerPoint presentation That'll show you what Tyler was showing to us And speaking about zooming in on this Because there's layers and layers of meaning and depth Within this immense picture I have the feeling Tyler that one could sit with this picture For many days before absorbing and knowing it Did you have to study it majorly before you could present it? Because I don't think you were part of the behalf collective For the entire process That's correct and you just have a whole bunch of questions So I'm going to sort of try to answer them in reverse order I joined the group about six years ago And this project was actually started ten years ago And completed only one year ago So it was on the drawing board for nine years Which means I got a lot of time to study it Many, many, many days And I talked with lots of different people about it And I also have had a lot of practice Even before the graphic was finished We were showing and using the sort of sketchy versions of it And telling these stories It's always difficult to describe pictures on the radio But if folks can look on the web and see it, that's great And otherwise I'll do my best to sort of explain This graphic is actually in two parts It's two different, very complex sort of mural-scale images That are printed back-to-back on the poster version Or printed on two large banners Which I had on display last night They're looking at this issue from two different perspectives One side is the perspective of the colonizing forces And it's drawn in this style Like an old world conquistadors map Like from the age of exploration It's this map of the Central American isthmus And it's viewed as this thing that's both in the way of global trade And a problem to be solved And also an opportunity for plunder And massive resource extraction And sort of re-colonization and re-conquering of the area Slide six And then on the other side The other perspective is looking from the grassroots up Sometimes we say it's the sort of ants-eye view of the world It's looking up in this lush rainforest scene With this beautiful rainforest canopy That's stretching out in the background Over a bunch of different little vignettes of different resistance movements And there are over 400 species of animals and plants That are represented to give just a tiny taste of the biodiversity Of the Central American rainforest And those animals are working together to do things like In one corner there's a water privatization monster That's trying to invade Slide seven It says Pura Vida on it Which is the local brand name for Nestle Nestle is the largest food corporation in the world And they're stealing water from people all over the world Including in Maine where the Beehive Collective is based People have been fighting against them Because they're extracting millions of gallons a day Putting it in bottled water And that water monster is actually shaped like a virus Where at the top the head of the virus Is sucking up water and turning water droplets into bags of money And then on the stem of the virus There is a tower that's several different Really big water-using industries That includes bottled water, mining, textiles, cattle farming And there's even a bunch of golf courses in there And then coming out of the base of the virus Are these legs which are straws And the straws are sucking up all the water Slide eight Next to this scene there's some river creatures Specifically it's a river otter A glass frog and an axolotl Which is a strange type of salamander And they're playing tug-of-war They're holding this sort of magical water rope That the water monster is trying to steal And they're trying to take it back You know, saying you can't have our water Because it's ours and because we've been using it for thousands of years In really healthy life-giving ways And in fact, right next to these animals who are playing tug-of-war They're sort of standing in front of and defending a temple To the life-giving aspects of water And that temple has a stream running through a little waterfall And these statues which are frogs that are showing these life-giving uses of water Like drinking and cooking and cleaning At the top of the temple the water is spouting out of a big uo-toed Slide nine The uo-toed is getting all of this life force from the water spirit creatures Which are coming out of the tree of life Which is overarching the whole scene And the tree of life is stretching far up into the canopy And has all of this biodiversity coming out of it But its roots are grounded down in the foreground Slide ten And its roots are nestling each one of these different scenes So the animals who are defending water From being taken and sold for a profit That's just one scene And then there's other scenes of bats giving birth And this idea of traditional medicine There's also other scenes of defense Like animals who are defending their communities From military incursions and other forms of violence Slide twelve There are corn, beans and squash The three sisters who are defending their land From industrial development projects Like megadams and power lines Highways and there's even an airport development project in there And then there's also more scenes of the really positive stuff Like in the interior there's a fiesta Where everyone's celebrating their culture And celebrating each other and their lives together There's a scene of community meeting Where there's a slide fourteen Diverse species that are all coming together to decide The future of their communities from the ground up And then there's also a big scene of a beehive That is lots of different examples of Slide fifteen Cooperative local economies Both traditional and creative New stuff that people in that area are engaged in So we've got a glimpse of a lot of the elements of this When you were doing the presentation You started with the conquistador's eye view of the world And then you went to the indigenously rooted The anti-view of the world as you put it Is there a proper way to view this Because I assume it leads us somewhere It teaches us something So I figured you started with the conquistador's eye view of the world Because we needed to see the despoilation that's happened We needed to see the forces behind it So that as we view the indigenous view We gain power from that, I'm assuming So is there a proper way to do this? Is there a proper tour guide? I have here a brochure A narrative for the whole thing Is this the right way to do it? Or is there a wrong way? I don't know There's lots of ways to view the graphic And one of the things that I think is really great About telling stories with pictures And doing it not in a sequential comic book form But laying it all out on one page as a mural form Is that people can enter the story from many different points And that actually makes it more accessible to anyone It also makes it flexible and that's really powerful We can tell many different stories with this image That's contrasted with writing it all down in a book Then it's set in stone and that's the way it is Last night I spoke about the colonizers worldview First, for a couple of reasons, one, because it was Columbus Day And the theme of this event was question in Columbus Day And looking at a different perspective on that history And so talking about the history of colonization felt really important But mostly last night I didn't even talk about Columbus I talked about modern day colonization And the legacy of Columbus Generally, I talk about the colonization part first Because it's about development projects that are happening In Central America right now And then comparing those with the history And showing people that colonization is not something That happened in the past and is over now But it's something that's ongoing Everyone here in the US knows who Columbus is And knows that colonization happened But we have these very distorted ideas Of what that was and what it is and what it all means You don't learn in American history class that Columbus enslaved all of the people that he met And forced them to bring him gold And if they didn't bring him enough gold, he had his men cut their hands off We don't learn in history class that the Taino people on Hispaniola, which is the big island that Columbus discovered Which is now the Dominican Republic in Haiti They were virtually exterminated in only 75 years Because of disease and because of enslavement and just wanton killing That is what set the model for colonization And that when we celebrate that guy here in this country Mostly because people just don't know They celebrate him because they don't realize this reality He famously said in his journals He first observed that the Taino people were very gentle And that they didn't have very powerful weapons And then his conclusion from that was saying I could conquer the lot of them with 50 men And make them do as I pleased, which he proceeded to do When Columbus came back the second time he came with an army And they enslaved everyone that they found Also, I think it's really important to give this alternative perspective That is looking, it's directly analyzing The sort of dominant perspective here in the US Which is a white privileged and male privileged And very much corporate interest defined perspective on the world That says first of all colonization was a good thing And Columbus was a hero And second of all that colonization had some tragic things But it's okay because it's over now The reality is that corporate globalization is just the new form of colonization And another thing that's really important, a lot of people don't realize Is that corporations were actually created by the British Crown To conquer and rule and administer colonies The first corporations which were things like the East India Company And the Hudson Bay Company and the Virginia Company And things like that They were like a group of people who were empowered by the king And backed by a bunch of aristocratic investors To go to other parts of the world and to take over And to create monopoly control of resources And markets and exports and everything They wrote the laws, they had the power to execute troublemakers Their goal was to make as much money as possible by any means necessary So when you think about that history It's no wonder that corporations are engaged in all sorts of nasty behavior today That's what they were designed to do, actually So that's the summary of the whole story that I try to tell with the colonization narrative And then I switch over to talking about the resistance movements Because that's a bunch of heavy stuff and people also need to hear good news That's encouraging and inspiring And people need to hear about groups and organizations and movements That they can support and act in solidarity with And also get ideas of what they can do in their communities to make change And it's much nicer to get that stuff at the end and leave on a hopeful note So that's kind of the reason that I tell the story that way Other members of the Beehive tell the story in different ways, though I know some folks will jump back and forth between them And say, here is this story reflected again just from a different perspective And that's really interesting and can be a good way for people to learn as well I need to check something because it's certainly an accusation That gets served up to people who are spreading stories like the Beehive Collective is doing They'll say that this kind of description, the negative light description of colonization passed and present Is really just self-flagellation Why are we whipping ourselves, telling this stuff Every culture in the history of the world The dominant culture got there by exploitation of the other folks around there So why should we self-flagely? Why is this important? Are there other cultures that expanded without being nasty folks? First of all, we are currently living in the sixth major extinction crisis And it's caused by people doing things like taking everything and sort of It's a sort of cycle that is self-perpetuating Where these armies go and they take and they bring stuff back And they make new things and are more powerful and then they can go to other places And take from those places and bring it back and make more things We're getting to this point now where this doctrine is threatening to kill the earth So it's not about self-flagellation Just because I'm a white person, just because I have this European descent And therefore, I benefit from colonization and colonialism Doesn't mean that I feel guilty about it Actually, my personal opinion is I feel angry about it And I feel like I want to change it and make amends for it And try to work with other people and to overcome these barriers of racism And things like that that have been set up to keep us divided And keep us from making change You're doing this work, Tyler, in the context of the Beehive Design Collective For those of you out there listening, you can find them on the web at beehivecollective.org That's org, like in organic, not COM commercial Tyler Norman is one member of that collective I understand that the collective was born out of the free trade protests So I think it's probably important to explain to people Because I don't know that most people I think when they hear free trade or NAFTA or something like that I think in the general population, folks say, well, of course we want freedom Free is a good word, isn't it? Of course freedom is a good thing and we want that Free trade in like capital letters as in free trade agreements is a very deceptive term Free trade agreements seek to remove what corporations call barriers to trade Most of us immediately just assume that barriers to trade are tariffs and taxes But the thing is that barriers to trade also include environmental regulations They include labor laws, things like minimum wage and safety standards They include things like any kind of taxes on a company at all Just the reasonable expectation of giving to the community that you work in Essentially free trade agreements create absolute freedom for corporations to do whatever they want And disable local or national governments from stopping them Something I've been learning about just this last summer Is the fact that here in the United States corporations actually have more rights than humans do The free trade agreements are basically taking that model and forcing it on other countries as well And once again, it's that colonial mindset Remember corporations were created to colonize other places And this rise of corporate rights that's happened over the last few generations Is a sort of re-colonization after a whole generation of rebellions that happened all over the world And lots of decolonization of Africa and South and Southeast Asia and Latin America So you were talking about the anti-globalization movement, which was big in the late 90s Some of you out there might remember the protests against the WTO in Seattle in '99 That was a movement that electrified a lot of people And brought a lot of individuals and communities together to fight for this sort of common cause Against free trade agreements, against these big international financial institutions that have been making or breaking countries All to just skim a little profit off the top That movement in a way it kind of fizzled out into the early 2000s Because there was a lot more repression against it during the George W. Bush years And also because people just got tired of marching in the streets and screaming no At these big corporations and elite humans who don't actually care about what we think And so many groups spun out of the anti-globalization movement With the goal of making something that was proactive and positive and looking towards the future A lot of different media groups came out of there A lot of people went back to their home places and started this new wave of sort of back to the land movement since the 2000s And also the Beehive Collective came out of there Originally it was a small group of all women who wanted to create art about the issues that they cared about As a way of doing something that was really positive and life affirming And they also wanted to try to make a living so that they didn't have to work a corporate job And play into the system When it first started these women got together and they found themselves a place in a tiny little town in Maine That was nice and secluded so they could focus on their artwork And they actually started doing these hand-cut stone mosaics The posters came a couple years later and people realized that making posters was much better than these mosaics Because they could be mass produced and they could be sold cheaply And so they were much more effective tool for communicating to lots of different people Instead of just being this thing that's installed in one place where not everyone can see it And actually the Beehive Collective is still based in this small town in Maine called Machias And we are experimenting constantly and learning a lot of lessons about working together And sort of creating these alternative local economic models and things of that nature So there's that aspect to our work as well I do want to continue more with the overall work and efforts of Beehive Design Collective But I think I want to view more views of Maison America, Reisiste There's so much of what you spoke about that is just gripping and inspirational And one of the major reasons that we have Norton Spirit Radio and Spirit and Action in particular Is because we do want to support people making that kind of positive change in the world You are listening to Spirit and Action which is a Norton Spirit Radio production On the web at northernspiritradio.org And again that's org like organic not commercial On the web you can find over 9 years of our programs for free listening and download You can find links to the organizations like Beehive Design Collective That's beehivecollective.org You'll also find comments on the programs and you can add your own We love having two-way communication so please do add your comments when you visit There's also a donate button This is full-time work that's funded by you So please click donate when you come And even more than that I want to encourage you to support your local community radio station They provide a slice of news and music that you get nowhere else on the American landscape And we need it so please start out by supporting your local community radio station We have with us here today Tyler Norman who's with Beehive Design Collective I just saw a presentation it was on Columbus Day as it is called by many people The graphic that you presented Tyler I want to go a little bit more into depth on that And people can follow along via some of the aids that you'll find via northernspiritradio.org You can see some of these pictures I'm particularly drawn to the idea that with the second part In its original creation was I think eight by four feet The inspirational indigenous the ANSA I view as you described it earlier I'd like to hear some of the stories Now the actors I don't think I saw a single picture in the entire graphic Either of the two graphics that was putatively a human being Its ants and bees are very common and frogs and everyone else First of all could you tell one of the stories and tell us which beings are doing it Whether it's the bats or whatever But just tell some of that story because as you say story telling is so powerful So grab a piece and we'll put that on the website And people can look at it and see the story as it's lived through these other creatures that cohabit this planet with us I'll talk about the beehive solidarity economy scene It's a large chunk of the Mesoamerica resistiographic Is this pyramid shaped elaborate complicated scene of a whole bunch of different bees As I said earlier there's 400+ different species represented Every single one of these bees is a different species And there's somewhere in the neighborhood of like 50 different species of bees represented But many of them are related species and many of them are a type of bee that's called Melopona They are a bee that produces very high quality honey It's very cherished as a medicinal for its medicinal value in Central America And people keep these bees in logs inside of their homes sometimes The Melopona bees don't have stingers actually Very interesting sort of narrative coincidence or maybe not coincidence Is that the bigger, more aggressive, more honey producing and sting carrying European honey bees Have been driving the Melopona bees out and displacing them And these traditional forms of beekeeping are under threat from this invasive species We wanted to really highlight the Melopona bees and also highlight the symbiotic nature Of bees and the flowers that they pollinate So at the top of the pyramid there's a vanilla flower Slide 60 And there are bees who are helping it to release seeds And then right next to it there's some vanilla flowers that are assisting the queen bee in releasing eggs And the eggs and the seeds are coming together to form this sort of moon cycle This thimble of fertility Slide 70 The really important part about this story is that many flowers are only pollinated by one species Of bee or other pollinator And these two species will depend on each other almost entirely And in fact vanilla, which is an orchid, it's native to Central America There are huge plantations of vanilla in Southeast Asia But there's no Melopona bees there Which means that the reason that vanilla is so expensive is because these plantations have to hire thousands of people To go around with Q-tips and individually pollinate every single flower That awareness of the interconnectedness of different species And the strength of diversity is a big part of the message that we try to deliver And so that sort of thing is incorporated into many different scenes But it's especially important in this bee hive scene And so that's at the top of the pyramid, there's also a bunch of young ones The larva, the next generation They're at the top of the pyramid as well To sort of symbolize how much people cherish the next generation And value that is the most important thing that we have Lower on the lower levels of the pyramid, there's many different scenes of bees who are engaged in planning They're doing sort of permaculture design, figuring out how they're going to landscape around their home To benefit themselves and also benefit their neighbors in the land itself There's bees who are building houses for different species of bees And also different species like bats and other pollinators And this is to remind us that in order to have a truly democratic society Making sure that people's basic needs are taken care of is just a baseline requirement And that's a big part of the reason, in my opinion, that we don't actually have a truly democratic society here in the US Even though we're told that we do, because many people don't actually have access to participating in society And stuff like that because they're just struggling, right, to get by day by day But these bees, they're all working together because they know that cooperation takes care of our needs better than competitions They're cooking food and sharing food There's other scenes where they're recycling and composting And making new products, not letting anything go to waste There's a scene of a cooperative where a bunch of bees are distributing all of the goods that they've made To the other characters around the mural, delivering things like candles and seeds And other things that the other characters need for their scenes And that's like a really important distinction, right, is this idea that the bees are operating an economic system that focuses on what people need And prioritizes getting things to people according to their need rather than according to who can pay the most for it It's like 20 There's actually one other thing that's coming out of that scene, which is rolling out of the pyramid-shaped beehive Is this machine that we call the people's media machine It's a bunch of bees rolling in on this device that's a combination of a letterpress, printer, and screen printing And social media, they've even got a pirate radio station on top And they're towing behind them this catapult that's launching seed bombs full of diverse different seeds And they're trying to do battle with the copy machine monster, which is the thing that's bringing in all the cookie cutter One-size-fits-all development plans, this idea that, you know, oh, it worked great in the U.S., people liked it there And we made lots of money off of it, so therefore it must be good in every other part of the world, too So they're challenging that Once again, just bringing it back to this theme of diversity as being really the greatest strength that us living things have I think there's also scenes that depict historical and current actions that humans have taken The animals are taking their own actions, the insects, there's stuff that's happening on that level But there's also scenes that depict actual resistance to the colonization control Why don't you mention a couple of those? Yeah, I'll talk about one of the scenes that's coming out of that copy machine monster So one of the things that's coming out is this airport It's like 21 And it's coming out on this sort of wave of papers, these plans that come from this higher source and just get stomped down on the local area The airport is coming, it's got a tie-on because it's a special airport just for, you know, wealthy business people And it's got some riot cops that are trying to guard it, bring it in But there's a resistance rising up against it, there's a whole field of corn carrying machetes that are rising up to meet it This is a story from a place outside of Mexico City called San Salvador Atenco I don't remember for sure, but I think this happened in 2002 or so The Mexican government, the national government was trying to expand the airport This was like a big money development project, they were going to build a couple of additional runways that were only for wealthy people's private jets and stuff like that In order to do that, they were going to take away through eminent domain They were going to seize the land of a couple hundred local campesino peasant farmers and just boot them out But those farmers said no, we're not going anywhere, this is our land We've been farming this for generations and you can't take it from us And they stood on their land and they carried machetes This is a powerful symbol of being a farmer In those parts, that's the tool that people use the most, they use it for clearing the land and for harvesting and processing a lot of the crops And also, it's pretty intimidating to like come on a field with hundreds of people carrying machetes You can look it up online, and sometimes people call it the machete rebellion, it's a pretty famous story Folks fought against the riot police that were trying to kick them out There were local leaders who were assassinated, killed in their homes As part of the process of trying to drive these people out But they wouldn't give up and they worked together and they held fast together They presented this unified front of resistance and they kept the project out, the airport was never built Next to those corn farmers, we also have scenes of beans who are students and teachers, they're in school They're learning, they have pencils and chalkboards and stuff And then squash, who are like the labor unions, they have lots of different tools and hard hats and things like that And they are working together to stop this highway from coming in And actually, those three scenes go together and I want to talk about them As an example of how we base our pictures on real life stories But we also talk about bigger sort of archetypes And corn, beans and squash are the three sisters A traditional trio grown by farmers all across the Americas When they're grown together, they actually help each other grow and they enrich the soil rather than depleting it Folks in Latin America said that there are not only three sisters in agriculture but also in social movements as well And when farmers and students and teachers and organized labor get together They can become this incredibly powerful force that can move mountains and transform whole societies And a lot of people said that's the dream that we're always hoping for Is that we can bring these movements together and it's very challenging Because there's always these divide and conquer tactics that are put on people from the top down And that's where things like racism and classism and nationalism come in Is that it's actually a tool that is used to divide people and prevent us from working together to make change And that's once again just bringing it back to the overall theme of diversity Biodiversity being a symbol of cultural diversity as well This is one of our main messages that we want to bring across Is that we should be celebrating and encouraging diversity of all kinds And again what Tyler's talking about, it's a super-sized graphic It's a beautiful thing called Mesoamerica resisti Produced by the beehive design collective on the web at beehivecollective.org I'm going to try and tie this up by following back a few threads of the work that you, Tyler and the beehive design collective have been doing First of all, this graphic or these two graphics are only part of what you've done There's posters you've done, all sorts There's the graphic you did with respect to coal mining and others People can check out on your website and they'll find some valuable resources there You mentioned that your presentations you've gone to a number of different places Number of different states right on this tour that you're doing right now You also mentioned you've gone to elementary schools I'm trying to figure out which elementary schools let you in If there's special elementary schools and what presentations you do there I was thinking it would be really wonderful if you had some kind of comic book As in essence you know a graphic novel that you could leave there with them So that they would be telling that story and carrying it on The images are so powerful So what do you actually do when you go to an elementary school And which ones let you in the gate? That's a great question and another thing that's really great about these fable style Picture stories is that once again they're very flexible And for example what I'll do in an elementary school Which could actually be any elementary school because Usually it's a teacher who brings us in And we just kind of bypass the administration and the school board and stuff like that We'll just go into a teacher's class And what we'll do is with young kids we'll take the big banner And instead of hanging it on the wall we'll lay it on the floor And they'll all get around it in a circle And look at it and as long as they take their shoes off They can run around on it and that's really fun And we mostly just talk about identifying animals that they recognize Maybe we practice reading and identifying animals We encourage them to interpret the stories and tell them to each other I've gone into second grade classrooms And the students might be saying these things that are really simple Like oh that one is being mean to that other one Or those two are sharing or something like that I'm certainly not talking to second graders about things like genocide And climate change induced disaster that's potentially moments away We mostly just focus on appreciating and loving all of the different animals And this idea of visual literacy and learning how to read pictures and stuff like that So I think it's really positive for them And then for example when I'll go into a middle school or a high school And tomorrow morning I'm going to be in central high school in La Crosse I'll do something that's again really interactive Where we take one of the poster versions of the graphic and we cut each scene out The students will be broken up into small groups and each group gets one scene And they get to interpret it for themselves And then each group stands up in front of class and shares back with everyone else So it's a really cool way for them to once again Learn skills like working together visual literacy And also speaking in front of the class And it's just a really fun fun way to be talking about politics I actually think that middle school and high school age students are the demographic that these things are the very best for I love going into middle schools and high schools Because students at that age are just beginning They're like just starting to develop to the point where they can grasp very complicated concepts That have lots of different moving parts But they're still young enough that they have imaginations that can read those pictures and figure them out As we get older, we become less able to interpret these sort of things and read them that way And so actually my favorite is to do it with a multi-generational audience So that everyone can contribute in different ways The older people know about things like NAFTA and they can explain things like free trade But the younger people totally get it that that one's being mean to the other one And can explain that What I did at the college last night was very much like a lecture style It was a storytelling more than a lecture but I was doing most of the talking That's actually not my preferred way of delivering the message But in colleges a lot of times people are just used to that So that's the way we got to do it And Tyler, you're working out of this collective of people They're people but they're called bees There are the people who are living there in Maine You've got the buildings in, some of you are living together And there's some graduate bees, I don't know who are pollinating the rest of the nation How big of a group of people are the bees And is that how you get to a place like Eau Claire Wisconsin or down Illinois or over And any of the various places you go? Is it because the bees have gone out and pollinated those places? So what is the bee and do you have the different classes? Are there work or be soldier bees? Is there a queen bee I should know about? That's another manifold question, where do I start? I'll start by saying that I forgot to mention in the beginning That we call ourselves the bees because we like the idea of working together And the idea that many individuals with a single purpose can create something bigger than ourselves Also because we like to say that we're cross pollinating the grassroots As we travel from town to town and collect stories And share and retell those stories and sort of act as these agents of evolution and movement building The way our organization works is not that much like a beehive Actually, the metaphor only kind of sounds good, but we don't actually act like a bunch of bees Who operate in that fashion that you are saying It's actually a very loose organization A lot of people come and go, a lot of people are doing this in a very part-time fashion None of us get a paycheck, so it's a labor of love for everyone There are some folks who are based in Machias That's where the beehive started and it's still kind of a center point But over the last several years, the group has grown in numbers And has also grown in scope, it's become more of a decentralized network of folks Yeah, as you said, some of us spent a lot of time in Machias And then decides we wanted to go back to our home places Other people just love the work of the beehive And they've never gone to Machias They just said, "Hey, this is cool, I could do this too" Can someone help train me how to do this? I will cover the Southwest states and I will, you know, do presentations around there And we say, "Great, we don't have anyone in the Southwest states" Please do, you know, and are really encouraging of folks And all of our graphics are anti-copyright Which means we actually encourage people to reproduce and reuse them It's this sort of open source mentality that I personally think is one of the key elements of our work Is that we believe that ideas are free And that when people share them And when people bounce them back and forth And evolve and change them in the process That we just get more of this diversity and more good ideas So we're really encouraging to other people to become a bee of their own In whatever way they can and whatever way makes sense in their context You know, nowadays we have folks, there's a crew of people who are in Canada Ontario, mostly, but we also have someone in BC There's some folks in Mexico There's a whole team of people in Colombia Which is really exciting One member of our group is like building a whole group there We also have folks in the UK and in Spain And actually recently someone in Poland Who's gotten really excited about sharing the work there We have folks in Australia And actually after this tour is finished I'm traveling to India Not to start a new branch of the Beehive Collective But to share the idea To share the process of collaboratively making One of these graphics together I met some folks who are really excited about making Beehive style graphics about issues in India They feel like it's a really great medium for telling stories India has so many different languages In terms of spoken languages, it's like 1600 Spoken languages And many, many dozens of big written languages So people saw these picture stories And said wow, this is perfect This is what we need to communicate across the many cultures That we have just within our place And it's a great way to revive the tradition of picture storytelling That's really prominent there and of course Exists and cultures all over the world I feel really strongly that More than an organization We've created a really cool new medium Of art and storytelling Right now I'm most excited about Spreading out that idea, that medium And encouraging other people to do it It's sort of happening, it's a little confusing How it's happening, we're figuring out what it means to be a decentralized network It's kind of chaotic, it's like we haven't quite figured it out yet But the really exciting thing is that idea is just getting out there more and more And I'm also wondering about some of the different functions that people undertake To get this massive graphic You not only do you need people who can draw Which is, I understand, they draw with large lenses So that they can magnify glasses so that they can see what they're drawing It's not only that, and you have people who are coloring it in People like yourself who are storytellers It's not only that, there's a fair amount of research that goes into this So what are these other features, do you have a webmaster for instance? Yeah, so there's lots and lots of stuff that goes into it There's basically three categories that I sort of see We attract artists who want to work on the drawings And just get really excited about the idea of the challenge of collaboratively making an art piece together We attract a lot of educators, people who want to tell the stories And want to use this as a tool to teach people And then we also get folks who are organizers And who see this as an opportunity to build and support movements for social change Or maybe they want to contribute their skills to an organization that they feel is doing something That's really positive in the world So of course we have all sorts of tasks You know, we're running a kind of small business We got bills to pay so we need bookkeepers on the bookkeeper actually We need a lot of people to help coordinate volunteers and make communication happen We had a real struggle making a new website Which we recently did a couple years ago because we don't have a webmaster And actually we realized oops, we need one of those There's all this stuff that happens in the background A lot of people travel to Machias in the summers and engage in these volunteer projects Fixing up stuff in Machias Like I said, there's all these sort of local engagement in this whole other level to the work that we do But with the graphics, once again, it's the same sort of There's the artists and the educators and the organizers A lot of people, as you said, focus on research Like what are the stories that we're going to tell? What are the species that we're going to represent? I'm not sure if I mentioned before that these graphics projects start with first person research trips So before anyone was drawing anything on the Mesoamerica resistigraphic There's a whole team of folks actually traveled from southern Mexico down through Panama And collected hundreds of stories from hundreds of people And then the process of making it involves lots and lots of talking And a big group hashing out these different ideas, sort of editing them down And then oftentimes there'll be a team who creates the storyboard And then it's handed off to the artists And then when the graphics are finished, that's when the real work begins That's when we take them out in the world and do these storytelling And actually, to kind of put it in perspective, less than half Of the people who consider themselves bees are artists, illustrators And even those of us who have done illustration work It's generally a tiny fraction of the work that we do It's kind of funny that we're an artist collective who doesn't spend very much time making art But it's because we've realized the amazing potential that comes from What we call cross pollinating, right? The touring around and the networking I've been doing that mostly because I think it's the most exciting thing It's the part of the work that I think is really teaching me a lot And making the most of my skills by constantly bringing me in contact With people in different communities, big and small, who are trying to make change in their communities My favorite part about doing this work is that I can show up in some little rural town Do a presentation, meet someone afterwards who says, wow, this is really great I'm so inspired, I'm really glad you came here But, you know, I just got to say, I've been trying really hard to start this one thing Like, I've been trying to start a community garden or something, who knows? This one thing that I just really care about, but I just can't get it happening Because I don't know how, it's hard, whatever, all the time I get to say Well, guess what, just like two nights ago, I met someone who's doing exactly that They only live like 80 miles from here in this other like tiny little town I got them to give me their contact information in my little contact book So here, here's their phone number If you want to start your community garden or whatever, why don't you call them? And that's what I mean when I say cross pollinating, right? Making these connections to build new things that exist outside of the Beehive Collective and my work, but I'm always just trying to like set off those little sparks Plant the seeds or whatever If we had enough time, I'd go into a lot more of the aspects of what you're doing At the Central Hive there, the Machias Valley, Grange Hall and the Black Fly Ball And these other things that you're doing because it's one of those slogans You have to see the global picture, but you have to work locally And I appreciate the fact that the Beehive Design Collective is working on both of those levels Is seeing the big picture and working locally I would be remiss, however, if on a visit to Spirit and Action I didn't ask you a bit about the spiritual aspects of this I'm talking about this for you, Tyler, but also for the Beehive Design Collective Is there any kind of, and maybe we've already heard it, but if you can make it explicit What's the spiritual perspective that both motivates and sustains this effort? You say they're people who come and go And after the first eight years of trying to design Mesoamerica resisté or something, they decide to flutter off to another place What is it that empowers people for long term? It's not the paycheck, obviously I think that first and foremost, we have a great appreciation for life and living things and diversity Actually, our group has fairly diverse perspectives And I'm not going to speak on behalf of the whole group and say this is what we believe in This is our ideology or whatever, because people don't agree on that And actually, I think that's a good thing You know, I'll speak for myself and say that I think that growing up living in a rural place and having a lot of access to woods and marshlands and being surrounded by life and diversity that made a big impact on me I look at this sort of chaotic universe and then I see that within all of that, our little water planet here we've got life always organizing and cleaning up and paving the way for more life to follow If you study the history of evolution, it's just this amazing saga of some catastrophic events, but mostly life recovering from those catastrophic events and constantly evolving and constantly diversifying and constantly coming up with all sorts of strange adaptations that may or may not be useful Often times, humans ask the question Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? And when I look at the living world I see that the question being asked is why not? Like let's just try it, try it, see what happens I think that I guess inspiration is the word I want I take inspiration from many of the sort of indigenous worldviews that I've come across because even though there's a very different from the culture that I was raised in which was Catholic, I think that they are much more connected with this idea of the importance of diversity because they, for the most part, adapted to the specific place that they found themselves in You go to a place like India and you see that they have 1,600 spoken languages the reason is because there was 1,600 different groups of people who wound up in 1,600 different places and realized that they needed to adapt their life to the specific place they were in and that specific place was slightly different than their neighbor's place and this is a way of living that's in tune with life, I think Nowadays, living in a world where corporations have more rights than humans have rights were constantly under assault from this homogenizing force that's always trying to make everyone the same and make everything all around the world all the same because that's how you make the most profit by monopolizing I just think it's really important to remember that humans are living things and corporations are not living things our actual needs as people are very different than the needs of a very corporate centric colonial style society maybe when it gets, you know, when you really dig past all the layers of the different stories that I tell, maybe that's the thing I'm really trying to communicate to folks you know, at the heart of it I love what you are communicating both your presentation last night this tour that you're part of, the work that you're part of creating as part of the Beehive Design Collective it's valuable work and I love the way that with the pictures and with the stories you're putting our minds in a different place where we can see the beauty of creation and find a way to sustain it and grow it it's really beautiful stuff that you're doing and I so much appreciate that you're doing it and that you join me today for Spirit and Action great, thanks for having me, it's my pleasure again we've been speaking with Tyler Norman of the Beehive Design Collective on the web at beehivecollective.org you can also find links via northernspiritradio.org where you also find some of the graphics to help explain the story that Tyler's been sharing today we'll see you next week for Spirit and Action the theme music for this program is turning of the world performed by Sarah Thompson this Spirit and Action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio you can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website northernspiritradio.org thank you for listening I am your host Mark Helpsmeet and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit may you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light this is Spirit in Action With every voice, with every song we will move this world along with every voice, with every song we will move this world along and our lives will feel the echo of our healing You