social gathering – [art]seen

SPREAD YOUR SEEDS

Wednesday April 11th, 7-10pm at the Kelsey Museum of Archeology on State Street

A group of graduating seniors is organizing a heartfelt event in honor of an incredibly important cause: Spread Your Seeds The evening launch event will include “food, friends, the opportunity to buy and sponsor necklaces, artistic and creative outlets (painting wall! reflection journals!), planting stations, music, and most importantly–the chance to cultivate community. This will be a space where people can gather, meet new friends, create art, conversation, and community–to become grounded and rooted together.” Bring a dish to pass, instruments, $10 in cash for purchasing necklaces and seeds, and most importantly, yourself.

To get more information, check out the website and the Facebook event

“When we lose our grounding, we lose ourselves. The solution? Find a way to ground yourself wherever you are: through community, art, sharing, and of course, love. In other words: Spread Your Seeds.

Spread Your Seeds is a growing organization devoted to helping root community and prevent isolation. The premise is simple: as a community, we hope to de-stigmatize depression, starting right here on the U of M campus. We raise money by selling handcrafted necklaces, composed of vials filled with local, Michigan seeds. The wearer can scatter the seeds anywhere that makes them feel at home or at peace–to remind them that they are connected to the world. The money we make from selling necklaces will all be directed toward different projects to build a community of understanding about depression.

Our first project is creating a collaborative children’s book about depression–the idea for which came from a community member who suffered deeply from depression. We hope the book can be a positive step toward making depression a more understood and less taboo social topic. We hope it will educate kids at an early age that depression, like other mental illnesses, is not a personality flaw, but a very serious disease that can be overcome when addressed and understood fully.”

Come and root yourself in the wholesome celebration of life and the effort on behalf of this organization to cultivate a sense of compassion and understanding.

(Logo design by Ellen Rutt of The MORE Show)

Hey all! Nina here, a lucky new writer for [art]seen. Taking the opportunity to christen my writing profile with a preview about an event that is near and dear to my heart. Shameless plug: a student organization that I help to run is holding its last event of the semester this Friday night!

Word of Mouth StorySLAM . STUFFED. Friday December 9. Work Gallery on State St. 6pm.

Still full from Thanksgiving? Come tell us about it! Join Word of Mouth Stories for its next StorySlam at 6 PM on Friday, December 9th, at the Work Gallery on State Street. This month’s theme is “Stuffed,” and the event should be full of tasty tales. Never been to our slams before? Audience members tell five-minute stories from their lives relative to a theme. Whether you come with stories or just to listen in, we hope to see you there. In the meantime, check out our blog!

Word of Mouth began as a student organization in Fall of 2010, inspired by NPR’s The Moth. The Moth holds StorySLAMS in major cities throughout the country, including Detroit and, recently, Ann Arbor (third Tuesdays of every month at Circus Bar on 1st St.). Originally the student group was called The MothUP, as offspring groups of the radio program go by. After growing in publicity and popularity on the internet, however, NPR contacted our student org and us we had to change the name if we wanted to avoid a lawsuit. Oops! But at least we made a splash in the literary world. Now we go by Word of Mouth. Events are just as fun, just as moving, just as creative as ever before.

Here is a clip from our last event on October 21st. In the spirit of Halloween, the theme of the evening was “Night.” The speaker is last month’s winner Maddie Sharton, a junior in the school of Music, Theater, and Dance.

Also, check out the muse of our org, The Moth. Here is a story from 2006 told by playwright Michaela Murphy. It is about her her Irish Catholic family who “lovingly spies on the Kennedy compound from afar.”

Take a listen, tell me what you think. Hope to see you on Friday!