Peace in the Prairie
Earth Day!
Friday, April 22, 2022
World’s Fair Pavilion in Forest Park!
Celebrate the health of people and prairies on Earth Day!
Saint Louis Story Stitchers Artists Collective presents Peace in the Prairie, an original presentation exploring the concepts of peace and violence, juxtaposing urban life as experienced by African American people living in the city of St. Louis, Missouri and the state’s endangered prairie lands.
Is the path towards peace through Missouri’s native prairies?
Reserve a chair at our community table and a picnic boxed lunch or dinner and enjoy cocoa or hot tea, and a cookie , snuggle under a lap blanket, and grab a hand warmer for a unique and unforgettable event! Experience the original film by Saint Louis Story Stitchers Artists Collective, six years in the making, under the stars of our city in the most iconic park in America!
Reservations and Pre-order meals and products on Eventbrite HERE
Excerpts from a youth podcast recorded at Shaw Nature Reserve in 2020. Youth leaders discuss their own exposure to violence living in St. Louis.
C:
So would you like to live closer to nature or would you rather just stay in the city?
E:
Okay. For me. So the nature part? Yes. A hundred percent. Like I am a city girl. I love the city. I like loud sounds. The whole vibe of it. Not the gun shot part, that can go away. But I just like loud, in general. So coming to nature itself, it’s just a different breeze. It’s more peaceful. I’ll say you’re able to ponder things a little more and just figure out a lot of other things you probably wouldn’t even think of. And just like being in nature itself, just seeing how the sun goes up, seeing how it sets. Just different other animals that comes out. Just like insects, the lighting bugs. You see a light to them.
E:
Because back in the city, you don’t really see a lot. Just too, like the stars. You don’t really see a lot there either. It’s like more foggy. Clouds are like mostly covering up, but here it’s spaces and it’s more clear. It’s a big difference, a hundred percent big difference. And I enjoy the nature a lot. Even though we got to go back to the city after this podcast, there’s trees where we at. There’s some trees and grass and stuff. But I do take walks and everything. Stuff like that. You still have to feed in what you have and everything. Just enjoy it. My last. Because you know, there’s nature all around. You just got to be able to like how you take it.
A:
I think for me, it’s my more of, like she said, I love the city because that’s what we’re used to. But I’m also like a country girl, you know what I’m saying? Born to Mississippi. So it’s in my blood. [crosstalk 00:23:01]. It’s in my blood, Mississippi. But for me I think I’ll probably be in a city until I have kids. Just because I don’t want them to be exposed and to be as desensitized as I was to gun sounds and sirens as I was. Especially if I have a choice to take them out of that climate and give them a healthier, a more healthier environment, you know? And I think that’s where people kind of get brainwashed like, “Oh, are you taking your kids away from.” It’s like, “No. Like, I don’t want my kids to grow up with PTSD.”
A:
Like if they don’t have to. I want them to know better. And to have a better experience. Childhood experience be able to go outside and play with their friend down the street. We’re not worried about them getting hit by a stray bullet. So yeah, for me, I’d probably be here until it’s time for me to settle down or something like that. Because like you said, I love the city. I love the people. But sometimes you got to be able to detach from these things.
C:
All right. So are we more creative during the Prairie trips? Like once you get into nature, do you feel like you’re more creative?
E:
Ooh, definitely. Like in the city, I’m always, I have a planner with me. And even though I write everything down, I write down my to-do list and I have everything I’m thinking about everything back to back to back. But like coming out here, it’s like we all talking and we all giggling and stuff, but then like I sit down and my mind is blank. I’m like, what was I supposed to be doing?
E:
Yeah. So I think… Yeah, I think we’re definitely better out here with our creators juices, because we’re not thinking about everything else that we left back at home. And we’re not thinking about everything that’s worrying us in our household or anything. We’re just thinking about… There’s nothing to think about. You can’t hear any cars or anything, just your book. So yeah.
S:
Yeah. When you think about it, there’s always some sound in the city. You’re constantly hearing noise. And then when you have the absence of having… Just hearing just a breeze and some birds, it’s just like, wow. It’s like this space is so empty. It’s time for you to really meditate. Just think and just collect your thoughts. This is a space where you could do this. So honestly I find myself thinking slower, if that makes sense. Because I can feel relaxed and just think things through. And the space is open and I’m more open.
B:
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I don’t know if I could say I’m more creative, but I feel like it’s a different type of creativity.
S:
Exactly.
B:
[crosstalk 00:25:45] like hurry. You think about things different, you feel stuff different. You have different emotions to channel into your work.
C:
Yes.
B:
And whatnot. So yeah. I think that’s what it is. It’s a different type of creativity.
E:
That’s funny. Because I was thinking the same thing.
S:
Like kinesis?
E:
He was like are you more creative then I’m thinking like, well [crosstalk 00:26:05]. When I’m in the hood, the pains you see.
S:
Right. It’s a lot of different stuff to draw from.
E:
The vacant buildings. The children planning these abandoned neighborhoods. That brings out creativity. Because it’s like you want to help your situation. But then when you get out here, it is like man, I got to tell people about this. I got so much poetry on my mind with all these trees and this grass and these bugs just flying freely. Like he said, it’s a different type of creativity.
S:
Oh yeah.
E:
So yeah. I like how you said that.
C:
I think that speaks to the type of artists you are too. Some painters work better in environments like this. Other painters work better in city environments. I feel like that depends on what you feel like you were born to interpret or to get across to people.
A:
Yeah. It’s true.
S:
Yeah. I like that.
C:
So do you guys think staying overnight would make a difference?
S:
Oh yeah.
E:
Oh yeah.
S:
For sure.
C:
All right. So how would that make a difference?
B:
Don’t ask me. No.
S:
Can we get a… Yeah. It would make a difference because the night time, yo it’s so different in the morning. It’s be less bugs out, but just like, okay. Like this pond.
B:
The movie bugs.
S:
Yeah. And then it likes more of the lighting bugs will light up. The stars are all out and they have this section over here. Well, they got a lot of pond over here. But it’s like this one area and there’s a bridge built on top of the pond. And you just have to kind of stare for a little minute and you will able to see through the night and see certain stuff that’s around, the nature. And it’s so beautiful. It’s so nice at that time. And you don’t want to go back to your cabin or whatever, you have a tent out.
S:
You don’t want to go. You want to continue to walk and just be at one with the nature because you feel it’s so beautiful and you don’t really get this in the city. You don’t.
B:
Unless you watch a scary movie though.
S:
Okay. Yeah. You got to find the right movie to watch. But yeah. So unless you do that, but honestly it’s so nice. And it’s so peaceful and it’s just like, yo, there’s so much to see. And we don’t even know that. Like S said, about the phones. You’re stuck on that. So just sometimes you got to move away from that and technology and just endure what’s happening at night and just outside.
B:
Why do you think the stars are more visible out here?
A:
Because there’s less air pollution and less-
B:
I was just about to ask you you think it has to do with-
S:
Hundred per cent.
B:
The air is cleaner out here.
A:
And the light pollution too. [crosstalk 00:28:33] because we got like a lot of street lights. Gas stations.
S:
And if that was over here, a lot of this nature stuff would be dead. It would not be standing up looking this good. So yeah, it has to do a lot with pollution and what they put in the air.
S:
I used to ask my dad all the time, “I don’t see no stars or anything. Are they dying and stuff?” He’s like, “No.”
S:
I’m like, they’re covered up.
S:
They covered right now. Yeah. It’s just… Some people don’t even experience stars.
B:
That’s interesting. And I guess it wasn’t really ever any question about it, but living like this is probably a lot better for the world.
A:
Yeah.
B:
That stuff like this. You use a little less resources too.
S:
That carbon footprint.
B:
The type of resources that are killing the earth, or you use a lot less of them.
C:
So the last question I have is what do you see Peace in the Prairie going in the next few years?
S:
That’s a good question.
A:
For me. I see it going in the direction of it being like a relic, like we seeing with all the fires burning. It’s a pattern with global warming. The fires burn every year, but they get increasingly worse every year and so do the storms around the world. I feel like looking back at moments like this and hearing songs about nature, it’s like our kid… Not our kids hopefully, but like our great, great, great grandkids and stuff like that. They’re going to be like, “Wow, that’s crazy. You all used to just sit outside?
S:
Oh no.
E:
On the porch?
S:
You guys have squirrels?
E:
If my kids can’t sit outside or my great-grandkids, man. I’m sorry, that wasn’t even a question but that just made me go off on a whole nother thing.
S:
If they can’t sit outside?
E:
Yeah. Like air pollution.
S:
That hurt.
E:
Yeah. For real. For me, I think I see it becoming more effective. Like bringing more awareness to the fact that because some people ain’t even been outside of the city or county of St. Louis. So just opening up people’s minds, not even in St. Louis, but in other cities, you know, that there is nature around you. Not too far from you. That you can go and experience. Just kind of from that angle. Just making people think. Or start to look up Google, like what’s the nearest Prairie to me? Or something like that. Just bringing people more aware. I think that’s what I’m excited to kind of see to the Prairie do in the next few years.
A:
Also just adding on top of that, I hope that this will inspire more creatives to put more black and people of color in areas like this. Because it’s like growing up, we don’t see like coming of age movies or books or different TV shows with like just black kids and people of color just hanging out in nature like we should be. We’re always in the city in some sort of like detrimental state. So yeah.
E:
Definitely.
Reservations and Pre-order meals and products on Eventbrite HERE
10:00 AM-4:00 PM Vendors will bring information and resources about prairies and native plants, accessing and enjoying the outdoors, and healing from trauma.
Performances and Presentations will explore the topics with yoga, presentations, and performances. Michelle Fleming, Yoga Therapist and Board Certified Structural Integrator will begin at 10:30 in the grass with yoga and mindfulness.
Guests include Cabanne Library, Perennial, Audubon Center at Riverlands, Alive and Well, Missouri Department of Conservation, Powder Valley Nature Center & Tower Grove Park Office, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, Power4STL aka The T, Women’s Voices Raised For Social Justice- Lock It For Love, Ars Poetica, CommUNITY Arts, and Creative Reaction Lab.
4:00 – 6:00 PM Be in Saint Louis Story Stitchers music video of our original song, “Who’s Ready?” Bring your group or bring yourself! Email storystitchers@gmail.com to reserve a cameo spot for your organization!
6:00-7:00 PM Community Performance
7:00-8:00 PM Picnic Dinner by Sugarfire (pre-order only through Eventbrite
8:15-9:30 PM Peace in the Prairie, Film Screening under the Stars
Peace in the Prairie is presented with support from Missouri Arts Council, a State Agency, which receives support from the State of Missouri.
Story Stitchers is supported by The Lewis Prize for Music’s 2021 Accelerator Award. The mission of The Lewis Prize is to partner with leaders who create positive change by investing in young people through music.
Additional support for Saint Louis Story Stitchers is provided by the Spirit of St. Louis Women’s Fund, City of St. Louis Youth at Risk Crime Prevention grant, March For Our Lives, and Kranzberg Arts Foundation.
