Folkwise
2020 – Present / WiseFolk Productions, LLC
Role:
Owner & Director
Date:
October 2020 – Present
Project Goals
Our vision is to build a digital network of folklorists and humanities organizations to create educational and entertaining content that centers creative communication in everyday life. The mission of WiseFolk Productions, creators of Folkwise, the core mission of WiseFolk Productions is to explore the study of tradition non-traditionally through digital content creation, public education, and direct community engagement. We accomplish this mission through our four core values represented in each of our projects: Community, Visibility, Public Education, and Accessibility. WiseFolk Productions offers real-time community connection opportunities with folklorists, scholars, artists, and musicians through entertaining educational content.
Our main project, known as Folkwise, is a YouTube and Twitch channel that allows us bring folklorists out of their jobs and right to you, so you can get the answers to questions you’ve always had about things like bigfoot, fairy tales, video games, vampires, banjo music, crafts – whatever folklore you have in your life!
Wise Words by NFN x Folkwise
2024 / National Folklife Network in partnership with WiseFolk Productions, LLC
Role:
Researcher, Interviewer, and Film Editing & Production
Date:
June 2024 – August 2024
Project Goals
Partnership between the National Folklife Network (NFN) and WiseFolk Productions to co-produce a series of educational videos for NFN members. Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Wise Words is a series of short videos that capture and share the unique skill sets that exist within the National Folklife Network. In these sessions, NFN members shared with us advice about how they activate their artistry, identities and heritage to impact their communities. Each Wise Words video was accompanied by an educational infographic and a bonus interview where members could get to know more NFN members and what makes them shine.
Project Deliverables (for each of the five NFN members we worked with):
- One >6 minute “skill-share” video unique to each individual and informed by the needs of the NFN Members
- One digital infographic/collage complementary to the content of each skill-share video.
- One longer (about 30mins) more personal interview about each member’s work and life.
***Films viewable upon request
See here the thumbnails for each “skill-share” video produced by this project:
Extinction in Stripes: Artwork of the Thylacine
2023 / The Ohio State University Humanities Institute
Role:
Researcher, Curator
Date:
Fall 2023
Project Details
This mini-exhibit was curated by Ahlstone to fill three large glass cases in the Humanities Institute, located on the first floor of Hagerty Hall on the Ohio State university Campus. The exhibit was in place for the fall semester of 2023, and included 26 individual artefacts of material culture featuring the thylacine, as well as a series of fiction and non-fiction books dedicated to this animal and it’s story. All items present were from Ahlstone’s personal collection of thylacine artwork and research materials.
Exhibit Overview
This exhibit presents a collection of artwork dedicated to the thylacine, also known as the Tasmanian tiger. The thylacine was a unique marsupial native to Tasmania, Australia, and New Guinea. Tragically, the last known thylacine died in captivity in 1936. Though it would not be officially declared extinct by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature until 1982, the thylacine was effectively gone from the public eye. Since its death however, the thylacine has grown to be revered as a major part of Tasmanian culture.
This exhibition aims to commemorate this remarkable creature, demonstrate the thylacine’s broad cultural impact and raise awareness about the relationship between conservation, cryptozoology and works of art. Each piece displayed here offers a different perspective on the thylacine’s enigmatic existence, its place in history and the human impact on its decline. The “vernacular resurrection” of the thylacine taking place through the creation of folk art explores some of the everyday ways people are presently dealing with the general loss of wildlife due to climate change.
Through this collection of diverse thylacine folk art, we invite you to reflect upon the thylacine’s tragic fate, potential present existence, and ponder the broader issues of species conservation, habitat destruction and human responsibility. May this exhibit inspire you to engage in conversations about our shared responsibility to protect and preserve Earth’s biodiversity, ensuring that no more unique species slip into the shadows of extinction.
Sharing Successes in Agroforestry
2021 – 2024 / Livelihoods Knowledge Exchange Network
Role:
Digital Storytelling Editor
Date:
January 2021 – May 2024
Project Goals
Forest farming plays an important role in post-extraction economies by providing supplementary or primary livelihoods rooted in diverse, meaningful, and multigenerational cultural heritages. Sharing Successes in Agroforestry (SSIA) values this practice, the local knowledge that sustains it, and an ecological attunement to the landscape.
The goal of this project is to provide educational materials that support the efforts of new farmers pursuing a model of agroforestry (such as agricultural extension agents, non-profits, and scholars in related areas) and describe the ways in which native Appalachian forests can provide diversified livelihoods, food, livestock, botanical, herbs, syrups, and other non-timber as well as timber products through sustainable management. These educational materials are designed using participatory methods, and overseen by a multi-stakeholder group of local farmers, practitioners, and scholars. Specifically, Daisy Ahlstone has conducted on-site videography, cinematography and visual storytelling, film editing towards the end goal of this project.
SSIA is a collaboration between LiKEN, Virginia Tech, West Virginia University, Ohio State University Center for Folklore Studies, a community of Appalachian Forest farmers, and is funded by the National Agroforestry Center of the US Forest Service. Our primary service areas are the historic coal regions of OH, KY, TN, VA, WV and highly rural and low wealth agricultural counties throughout Appalachia.
Women Owning Woodlands: Placemaking in SE Ohio
2021 / The Ohio State University Center for Folklore Studies
Role:
Ethnographer
Date:
January 2021 – May 2021
Project Goals
Women Owning Woodlands (WOW) is a collaborative organization bringing together National Woodland Owners Association (NWOA) and the USDA Forest Service, Cooperative Forestry Office. The almost 40-year-old organization has affiliate members in all 50 states. The combination of these programs brings together “landowners through the commitments of state forestry agencies that combine federal and state resources to benefit the people and land of their states.”
WOW provides a unique perspective on the role of placemaking in Southeast Ohio. As a community focused on providing services to an underrepresented community in the field of forestry and natural resources, WOW is dedicated to helping people connect to their land through improving land-management practices and increasing knowledge and confidence in women who choose an active role in land stewardship. These practices of care are demonstrated through land maintenance: spending time and energy on assisting the land creates stronger bonds and a sense of place for women in Southeast Ohio.
Please read more about the contributions Zahra Abedi and I made to this project by following the link here.
Daisy Marie Ahlstone 