Ferment 2021

Overview

The third and final year of Ferment was entirely virtual. This led to opportunities to try new things and difficulties when dealing with a diverse group of creators who hadn’t had a chance to connect in-person. New Not Normal continued to be the home for residencies, events, workshops, and connections during a period of forced isolation.

Fermentation is a practice known in most cultures. Ultimately, fermentation serves five basic purposes: to provide greater diversity of flavors, aromas, and textures; to preserve food for later use; to increase the health benefits of a food or drink; to get rid of anti-nutrients, and to reduce the need for cooking and the associated need for fuel.

Ferment therefore became a useful metaphor for the work we are trying to do.

To increase the diversity of stories available to us to make sense of the world.
To preserve stories and ways of knowing so that they are not lost to future generations.
To offset the trend toward algorithmic optimization of culture at the expense of the hard work and education required to develop personal taste.
To offer time and support to approaches that the market might not currently support
To accelerate projects that disrupt how we deal with massive problems affecting us and subsequent generations

While Ferment as a year-long container for cultural producers was discontinued, the model was carried forward into Ferment AI, a residency that convened creators around the issues of materiality, relationality, and sociality of algorithmic systems.

New Not Normal