A “Love Letter to Vallejo” – The Vacaville Reporter

The Visions of the Wild festival is rooted in its environment, but has a distinctive artistic focus and is difficult to reduce to a single thing.

For the past decade, the two-day event has delighted the public each year with film screenings, art exhibits, hands-on exploration and lecture series, all exploring different facets of the natural world. Despite its popularity, however, staff struggle to answer one question: What is Visions of the Wild?

In 2014, the event was originally planned to mark the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act. Founder Steve Dunsky, a filmmaker with the U.S. Forest Service, pioneered an event that combined art and nature. He saw the anniversary celebration as an opportunity to connect the Vallejo community with nature and used the thriving arts scene as a means to do so.

While the festival still celebrates the founding of the National Wilderness Preservation System, that is no longer the only focus. Each year, the festival chooses an environmental theme or topic, including this year's theme of “Re•Generation.”

“We made it kind of fun,” said festival director Hannah Dunton, recalling the first event in 2014. “And then we did it again the next year, and so it became this thing that's always been around. But we never really stopped to summarize how things are going and what we're doing.”

To refocus and understand the festival's impact on the community, the team formed focus groups in advance of this year's festival, which is scheduled to take place on September 13 and 14. Two things stood out. “They really like it when we focus more on the kids,” Dunton said. That was insightful feedback for the self-described “intellectual, smart audience.”

Based on this response, the team realised they could focus more on the Saturday morning Family Discovery Zone. Particularly given the theme of Re•Generation and its important sub-theme of younger generations, Dunton began to ask, “What challenges are children facing and how do they view conservation work?”

Dunton went a step further and saw an opportunity to include children in the cultural portion of the weekend. Before the acclaimed Wild & Scenic Film Festival On Tour closes the festival on Saturday night at the Vallejo Naval & Historical Museum, a children's film screening will be held during the day at the Riverbank on Georgia Street.

This selection of short films is curated for families, ranging from three to 15 minutes in length, and is aimed at the younger generation. Films such as “Danny Macaskill: Do a Wheelie,” “Brave Girl” and “JoJo – A Toad Musical” teach young people about ecosystems and how young people can change the world.

“People have also enjoyed seeing Solano County as a special place on Earth,” Dunton said. Many, if not most, festival-goers call this area home, and they want to see how these broader concepts of renewal apply to their city. “How does it show up in Vallejo and Solano County as this really special place where we have these migratory bird patterns, monarch butterflies, the river and the mountains?” Dunton said.

Visitors will experience a new focus on this “special place” this year as the festival becomes a “love letter to Solano County.” Part of the art exhibit will be a slideshow of “before” and “after” photos of Vallejo through time. Artist Coordinator Dragana Monson and Event Coordinator Robin Gross dug deep into the library archives and reached out to community members who donated old photos to ensure a cohesive and comprehensive look at Vallejo through the years.

A series of lectures on Saturday will also focus on a multigenerational perspective on Vallejo, which Dunton expressed particular enthusiasm for. The panel of speakers will discuss Vallejo's history from the perspective of different generations and perspectives.

Although Dunton doesn't particularly enjoy her new title of festival director, it's not for lack of passion. Rather, she sees it as a team effort made possible by the spirit of volunteerism.

“We're all volunteers and we do this because we really love this community,” said Dunton, who has been involved since the festival began. “We all work really hard at our day jobs and do this every day after we get home. Nobody makes a dollar from this. It's really just a labor of love.”

For the Visions of the Wild Festival schedule and locations, visit visionsofthewild.org.

Originally published: August 27, 2024 at 18:02