Rural Urban FLOW: Every seed has a powerful story

Rural Urban FLOW (FLOW) is a growing network of cultural and agricultural producers across Wisconsin’s rural-urban continuum. We look beyond neighborhoods and news feeds to cultivate common ground.

We acknowledge our Wisconsin exchange is within the traditional homeland for many different cultures—including the people of the sovereign Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Potawatomi, Anishinaabe, Oneida, Dakota and Mohican Nations—who remain present here. 

In 2021, FLOW began documenting a seed exchange initiated by Elena Terry of Wild Bearies, with support from our FLOW Network Participant Fund. Based in Ho-Chunk Nation and Christmas Mountain, Elena is the Executive Chef and Founder of Wild Bearies, an educational, community outreach nonprofit that strives to bring ancestral foods to communities in a nurturing and nourishing way. Elena wanted to offer an exchange to our FLOW around art, growing food, and community-building from her lifelong Indigenous experience in the lands we can share.

Elena invited Milwaukee-based Venice Williams of Alice’s Garden Urban Farm and The Table to exchange seeds. Venice is a cultural and spiritual midwife, and the Executive Director of The Table—a 1st century style community in the 21st century that cultivates faith, food and collective healing. A project of The Table, Alice’s Garden is a 2.2 acre urban farm located on the birthplace of the Underground Railroad in Wisconsin. As Venice and Elena grew their connection, they discussed parallels in their Indigenous and African-American experiences, using seeds as a form of resistance, and cultural connection through coerced migration and other hardship. They laid ground for a literal exchange of seeds, but also an opportunity to share stories and culture. 

Elena and Venice also invited Reedsburg-based Jay Salinas of Wormfarm Institute into the conversation, in part because of his work as a rural organic grower focused on offering Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs) to nearby Ho-Chunk families, and others in the region around Sauk County. Jay is Co-Founder and Director of Special Projects for Wormfarm, a non-profit that integrates culture and agriculture to build thriving communities through the Farm/Art DTour, an artist residency program, and other initiatives. 

In the spring of 2021, Elena and Jay visited Alice’s Garden for an Indigenous Unity Fire and other community happenings. The next day, the three met at Venice’s house for a conversation, and to trade seeds from their personal stores. They sat at Venice’s beautiful table, surrounded by books and plants and artworks. The conversation veered in many directions, driven by personal stories, meditations on agriculture, cultural context, race in America, and much more—but at the center: a shared vision to enliven our region by connecting people across geography and history.

Later, on a gorgeous autumn day at a retreat center nestled in Upham Woods, Elena hosted us for an in-person FLOW exchange. The invitees included established FLOW network participants, but also first-timers from Sauk County, Milwaukee, and in-between. Elena and her daughter prepared a multi-course feast for the group, with crops grown from the bounty of the exchanged seeds. For many, it was the first gathering like this amidst our pandemic. 

Before parting ways, the group took a short walk to the Wisconsin River for a photo. The backdrop was Blackhawk Island, which has roots in the Indigenous community in that land. 

Adam Carr

Elena, Jay and Venice are all dedicated FLOW network participants who have contributed to what cultural exchange can mean for our network. In turn, they offer a vision for understanding Wisconsin and the Midwest, in light of multi-faceted migration and hybrid rural and urban experiences in these Indigenous lands.

Thank you to FLOW for the continued support, encouragement and participation. The dream to stand in solidarity with each other, in each other’s communities, has continued to be a source of inspiration for me.  —Elena Terry, Wild Bearies

This video is a window into the perspectives of Elena, Venice, and Jay on the transformative power of sharing seeds. It is part of an upcoming documentary media project by Milwaukee-based artists Adam Carr, Sara Daleiden, and Wes Tank. 

© Adam Carr, Sara Daleiden of MKE<->LAX, and Wes Tank of TankThink, 2022