#080 Regenerative Media

What if it’s not about solving but maintaining a connection?

Nicol Ragland is an award-winning film maker and photographer from the US. I first came across Nicol when she directed the spectacular short film, Farmer’s Footprint, featuring Dr Zach Bush and a group of regenerative farmers including Gabe Brown. It echoed so many of the stories you hear on this podcast, and elsewhere, of both the litany of issues in the wake of ‘big agriculture’ and its related systems, and the often-surprising pace of recovery among those communities able to step out from under that boot heel.

Nicol might be thought of as part of a growing movement of solutions journalism or regenerative media. But she still thinks too few producers understand the influence of propaganda and well financed algorithms. And what we can do about it.

“If you allow yourself to be curious and the capability of truly listening to another, then there’s a magic that can happen. I mean call it God, call it magic, call it Allah, call it what you will, there really is like a certain kind of cellular memory, recognising what is our nature and how do we abide by the natural order of things.”

— Nicol Ragland

Nicol was born and raised in Oklahoma and Colorado, but couldn’t wait to get out of there. After eighteen years in Los Angeles, though, she recently circled back to her “red dirt roots”. She wrote a blog about why, talking of the power of reconnection with country, health and communities. And she lamented that so much of our deepening political divides are between rural and urban folk, concluding with the question: “What if it’s not about solving but about maintaining a connection?”

This conversation was recorded on the morning of 16 March 2021 (Australian time).

Click on the photos below for full view, and hover over the image for descriptions where they’ve been added. All photos taken by Nicol Ragland except her biopic.