Podcast Interview with Brandi & Carlton Turner, Sipp Culture

On this episode of Trustees Without Borders, Brandi and Carlton Turner speak about their use of the arts and agriculture to support rural community, cultural, and economic development in their hometown, Utica, MS.

Carlton Turner, Lead Artist and Director of Sipp Culture, works across the country as a performing artist, arts advocate, policy shaper, lecturer, consultant and facilitator. Brandi Turner, Program and Events Manager of Sipp Culture, was born in Michigan and raised in New Orleans, LA and Oxford, Mississippi. Brandi works as co-owner and Managing Director of TWA Consulting, a firm that provides services in creative consulting for organizations looking to strengthen their work in arts and culture. The Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Sipp Culture) is honoring the history and building the future of Utica, MS. Their work weaves together research, development and local agricultural initiatives with contemporary media and storytelling to share the legacy and vision of Utica.  Sipp Cultures’ place-based model program promotes economic empowerment and self-sufficiency of low-and moderate-income people through education, technical assistance, training and mentoring in agribusiness.

Interviewers: Neda Moayerian, Post-Doctoral Research Associate at Virginia Tech at the Institute for Policy and Governance, Sarah Lyon-Hill, Associate Director for Research Development at the Virginia Tech Office of Economic Development, and C. Meranda Flachs-Surmanek, an artist, cultural organizer, and master’s degree candidate in Virginia Tech’s Urban & Regional Planning and Theatre’s: Directing & Public Dialogue programs

In Partnership With: Virginia Tech School of Performing Arts; Blacksburg Public Library; Virginia Tech’s Women and Minority Artists and Scholars Lecture Series; Center for Food Systems and Community Transformation in the Department of Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education at Virginia Tech; The Center for Communicating Science; The Christiansburg Institute, Inc