Covid-19 has fundamentally restructured our lives, our culture and our economy. We are all painfully aware of the immediate impacts of Covid. The long-term impacts are more uncertain.
Often we wish to believe that culture evolves in more or less systematic ways through incremental changes over time. This is true in some respects but slow incremental change is not the primary way contemporary culture evolves.
During the last one hundred and twenty years, the world has changed faster and more dramatically than at any time in human history. We have experienced two World Wars, constant regional conflicts, profound technological revolutions, wholesale restructuring of the world economy and fundamental social and cultural change.
Metamorphosis— the transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly— is a more radical engine of change than incremental evolution. Inside the cocoon, the caterpillar completely dissolves into a primordial soup. Imaginal discs, containing the DNA, float in that soup. From them will grow the winged beauty.
This program, featuring three leaders with highly diverse backgrounds, will be an open discussion of the possible ways Covid-19 will lead to metamorphoses in our individual lives and our culture.
Conversants
Dan Monroe, a former Chairman of the American Alliance of Museums, the world’s largest museum professional organization; former President of the Association of Art Museum Directors representing American, Canadian, and Mexican art museum directors; former Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Director and CEO, Peabody Essex Museum; photographer, award-winning film-maker; educator; and former Alaskan commercial fisherman.
Judy Tuwaletstiwa is a New Mexico visual artist, writer and teacher. Her work resides in private and museum collections nationally and internationally. After earning Degrees in English Literature from U.C. Berkeley and Harvard University, she discovered the power of visual art to connect us to the deepest part of ourselves.
Dr. Rosita Worl, whose Tlingit names are Yeidiklasókw and Kaaháni, is Tlingit and member of the , Ch’áak’ (Eagle) moiety of the Shangukeidí (Thunderbird) Clan from the Kawdliyaayi Hít (House Lowered From the Sun) in Klukwan, Alaska. Yeidiklatsókw serves as the President of the renowned Sealaska Heritage Institute in Juneau, Alaska. The Sealaska Heritage Institute represents the Tlingit, Haida, and Tshimshian people of Alaska. Dr. Worl earned a Ph.d. in Anthropology from Harvard University. She has been an officer of the Sealaska Corporation and a longtime national Native American leader. She served as Chair of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Committee for several years.
