A conversation with Beth Ferguson
Posted March 18th, 2005 by MollyA few months ago we sat down with the amazing Beth Ferguson to discuss her involvement in various projects around the world including Bikes Across Borders, Green Map, Bread and Puppet Theater, More Gardens, the Beehive Collective, and many more . We discussed the power of using art and performance as a way to educate, raise awareness, and make connections between issues like globalization and the environment, using mediums ranging from puppetry, bikes, block prints, murals, recycled objects, and maps.
Our apologies to Beth for posting this so late!
How did you get started making political art?
I was really lucky growing up in New Hampshire because Bread and Puppet was nearby and I had friends with hippie parents who would bring us to Vermont, to Glover to see Bread and Puppet. Not only was I excited to see the puppets but it was my first chance to see political art and it was like being hit with the real news, that wasn’t getting out on the stations and it was having my mind blown, like learning what was going on in Central America. It really blew me away that puppeteers were coming together from all over the world to put on these shows in the woods all throughout this circus field and up on stilts and dancing and making paper mache puppets and burning them, bringing a lot of people together and eating bread and having a lot of volunteers make this whole thing happen. So that’s what got me started in seeing connections between art and politics and ways of bringing people together.
