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Packaging the sights, sounds of bygone erasBy James Edwards Mills
"We produce program materials that encourage older adults to share their stories among themselves and exchange experiences between generations," said Lynne Martin Erickson, who co-founded Bi-Folkal with Kathryn Leide in 1976. "Of course, reminiscence is valuable one-to-one in families, but when you have a whole group of people you have a lot more benefits. In a group you can also spur and prompt other people's memories and you can use them to form relationships and find common ground," she said. Intangible and ephemeral, memories fade through the passage of time. Martin Erickson said her company's mission is to make memories last through a collection of specially designed multimedia kits. Each kit contains photographs, audio and video recordings, three-dimensional artifacts, role-playing scripts, even scented materials, which all aim to stimulate memories and prompt discussions of a specific moment in the past. "The basic idea is to put everyone in the same place at the same time," Martin Erickson said. "A program like 'Remembering Summertime' is a very sensual show. We'll have a picture of lemonade being poured into a glass. We have the sound of it and clinking ice cubes. We have the picture of the old-fashion push mower and the sound it makes. We have the sound of an old screen door slamming." The sensory stimulus sparks discussion and participants can resurrect their own memories of what life was like at that moment in time. Or they experience sensations as they were in a time before they were born. Programs include "Remem-bering 1924," about the Jazz Age," "Remembering the Home Front," about the time of World War II, and "Remembering the Fifties." The programs help put into perspective events whose impact can still be felt today. "There are fewer and fewer people now that have clear memories of the Depression," Martin Erickson said. "But it was a life-changing event for the people who lived through it and it was life changing for the children of those people because it really shaped their ideas of spending money, of saving, of repairing instead of replacing. These are memories that must be preserved." Bi-Folkal memory kits are sold primarily to public libraries around the country. The materials range in price from $24 for basic kits to $330 for complete audiovisual packages. But as funding priorities shift under budget constraints, Martin Erickson said fewer institutions see the value in her company's products. "It's that kind of thing that gets cut when budgets are tight," she said. "They're keeping the book mobile at home and they're retiring librarians early. It's been a very tough last few years." But Martin Erickson continues to be optimistic and retains her enthusiasm for a program about to enter its 30th year. "In my heart of hearts, the most important thing I can do is encourage people to share their stories," she said. "And I can encourage younger people to listen to these stories and learn from them." jmills@madison.com madison.com ©2009 Capital Newspapers. All rights reserved. |
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