The visuals for “Lexicon” are stunning, particularly the mosaic-like compositions that marry photographs, text, animation and video interview in a truly unique way. How did you develop this unique aesthetic?

The Italian images in my book “SLOW” began as a happy accident. I quickly learned that a single image was not enough. Not only were my images too small, but they also lacked the ability to convey the concept of “time,” of the beginning, middle and end of things. The idea of capturing hundreds of images, at times over long periods of time, then creating mosaics seemed like the only solution.

The decision to overlay these images with text came at about the same time. I wanted to convey what these people said to me as I worked. I wanted to share their insights, their observations. And I also wanted to solve another problem I had with photographs, namely that they often left so much unanswered. I wanted to provide as much information as possible within an image, to create what someone once called a “flat film,” a single image that actually uses time, that tells a story.

Regarding my typographic process: after completing a photo collage, my staff assembles a list of every possible question a viewer might ask, ranging from “What’s that strange thing in the corner of the picture?” to “How does that machine work?” to “What is that person thinking?” After our subjects answer these questions their words are meticulously applied to the image. The process is lengthy. One image with noted farmer/photographer Michael Ableman — from taking the initial photographs to building the photo collage with text — took over a year to complete. The result is a handmade and hopefully authentic artifact that explains a fundamental principle of sustainability in highly personal terms.

Read the entire story at Bay Area Bites

The Lexicon of Sustainability is based on a simple premise: people can’t be expected to live more sustainable lives if they don’t even know the most basic terms and principles that define sustainability.

For the past three years Douglas Gayeton and Laura Howard-Gayeton have crisscrossed the USA to learn this new language of sustainability from its foremost practitioners in food and farming.  Alice Waters on edible schoolyards.  Wes Jackson on reinventing wheat farming.  Joel Salatin on embracing the value of saner farming practices.  Vandana Shiva on the global imperative of protecting seeds.  Paul Stamets on how mushrooms can save the world.  Will Allen on Food Security.  Temple Grandin on the humane slaughter of animals.  Farmer John on the revolutionary idea of community-supported agriculture.

In all, nearly two hundred leaders in food and farming from across the country have contributed their valued experiences to this rapidly growing Lexicon of Sustainability.  These insights have been translated into large format “information art” photo collages,  a series of short films, and pop up shows across the USA.  Study guides, a book, and lastly a social network of good ideas, a place where people can dig deeper into these terms (and even add to our ever-evolving lexicon), are also under development.

Today’s featured video takes a look into the “The Story of an Egg”. Follow poultry farmers David Evans and Alexis Koefoed as they explain the real meaning behind such terms as “cage free,” “free range,” and “pasture raised” so that consumers can make informed decisions when they go to their local supermarket:

Watch The Story of an Egg on PBS. See more from The Lexicon of Sustainability.

By illuminating the vocabulary of sustainable agriculture, and with it the conversation about America’s rapidly evolving food culture, the Lexicon of Sustainability educates, engages, and activates people to pay closer attention to how they eat, what they buy, and where their responsibility begins for creating a healthier, safer food system in America. Audiences are encouraged to participate by adding and defining their own words of sustainability to the lexicon, curating a Pop-Up show in their own communities, and joining a social network of individuals all key in driving the sustainability revolution.

Click here to learn more about the Lexicon of Sustainability, watch the short films, and explore terms!

Live Social Screening of Charlie 13 with filmmaker Michael McMillian on Thursday, April 26 at 5PM PT / 8PM ET

About Charlie 13
On the eve of his 13th birthday, will Charlie Tuttle submit to a government-mandated tracking implant, or answer a more dangerous call to adventure?

About Filmmaker Michael McMillian
Michael McMillian’s film and television work includes playing Reverend Steve Newlin on HBO’s True Blood and leading roles in Dorian Blues, What I Like About You, and Saved. Other credits include Veronica Mars, The Hills Have Eyes 2, Big Love, The Mentalist, and Firefly. McMillian co-wrote and produced the award-winning short film Glock, co-wrote the full-length feature film The New Life, created and wrote the graphic novel Lucid, and co-wrote True Blood: Tainted Love.

Follow this link to the screening of Charlie 13 with filmmaker Michael McMillian.

Live Social Screening of Gunny with filmmaker Patrick Stettner on Thursday, April 26 at 5:30PM PT / 8:30PM ET

About Gunny
A young female soldier returns home after a traumatic tour of duty, taking a new medication that can selectively erase memories.

About Filmmaker Patrick Stettner
Patrick Stettner’s feature filmmaking credits include the award winning and Sundance Lab-developed The Business of Strangers, starring Julia Stiles and Stockard Channing, and The Night Listener, starring Robin Williams and Toni Collette. He has won numerous awards from the Paris Film Festival and San Francisco International Film Festival and two awards at the Palm Springs International Film Festival for his thesis short, Flux. In addition to filmmaking, he teaches directing at his alma mater, Columbia University.

Follow this link to the screening of Gunny with filmmaker Patrick Stettner.

Join us for a social screening of FUTURESTATES Episode 3: Gunny with filmmaker Patrick Stettner, who will be taking part in the screening to talk about the film and take your questions live.

Participants can join for free by signing in with Facebook or directly on the site, interacting with other viewers and panelists in real-time, while watching the film. Viewers can comment, ask questions, take polls, and even express their feelings about what they’re watching through a variety of tools on the site. This is an entirely new way of experiencing documentary films and it is inherently social.

Gunny: April 26, 2012 at 5PM PT/ 8PM ET

A young female soldier returns home after a traumatic tour of duty, taking a new medication that can selectively erase memories.

To participate in this screening, click this link.

The filmmakers and stars of the ITVS-funded documentary The Revolutionary Optimists were models for social change at TEDxChange and the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, where they introduced Map Your World, the new transmedia project inspired by the film.

A short piece from the film was created for TEDxChange, an event co-hosted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and TED in Berlin on April 5, 2012, where participants were encouraged to apply new perspectives to pre-existing big picture issues. The short, introduced by Melinda Gates, showcased the evolution of Map Your World, a cross-platform project inspired by the documentary.

The Revolutionary Optimists follows “The Daredevils,” a group of youths in one of India’s most notorious squatter’s colonies, who have made a dramatic improvement in the health of their community, a place that cannot even be found on a map of the region. Determined to make a geographic and meaningful map of their colony, the Daredevils have been painstakingly tracking and collecting data around health issues that impact them – water, sanitation, and infectious diseases. In 10 years, they have made dramatic improvements in their area: They’ve turned a trash dump into a soccer field, lobbied for electricity, and decreased diarrhea and malaria rates in their neighborhood.

Salim reviews the map he and his fellow Daredevils made of his community in India.

Thousands of people — at the event and online — were able to follow Sikha, Salim, and the other Daredevils as they worked together to “map their world” by putting their small community on the map and using GPS technology to track and record polio vaccination.

The filmmakers behind The Revolutionary Optimists, Nicole Newnham and Maren Grainger-Monsen, have spent the past couple of weeks with the subjects they filmed years ago. In addition to the TEDxChange, Grainger, Newnham, social entrepreneur Amlan Ganguly, and 14-year-old Daredevils Sikha Patra and Salim Shekh, were invited to the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship in Oxford in late March.

Sikha doing some field testing with a water survey for Map Your World.

The 2012 Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship focused on seizing momentum and driving change, aptly themed “FLUX.” The Forum invited delegates to explore the “dynamic environment within which social entrepreneurs navigate uncertainty in their pursuit of large scale change.” The Revolutionary Optimists crew participated in the “Stories of Change” event presented by the Sundance Institute, celebrating film’s role in advancing knowledge about social entrepreneurship. It was Salim and Sikha’s first appearance outside of their native India.

According to Newnham, “[Salim and Sikha] were so poised and eloquent, inspiring many social entrepreneurs to come up to us and say that seeing them was inspiring and brought them back to the core of the work they were doing.”

The Skoll Foundation also invited the teens to speak on a panel dedicated to youth leadership, “Young People – The New Superheroes Leading Social Innovation.” The panel featured individuals who are making significant changes and are inspiring a new worldview for all. Subjects ranged from sex trafficking to the continued establishment of social media to support the youth movement in Egypt.

Sikha, Salim, and Amlan traveled from India to Oxford to present at the Skoll World Forum.

Rounding out its European tour, this weekend, The Revolutionary Optimists will be screened at a special event in Geneva. The 2012 Geneva Forum on Social Change will provide a platform to discuss and showcase models of development in times of economic crisis and persistent social divides. Learn more about the the Geneva Forum on Social Change.

A young female soldier returns home after a traumatic tour of duty, taking a new medication that can selectively erase memories. Learn more about Gunny from filmmaker Patrick Stettner in a recently conducted Skype interview, after the jump.

With global population at an extreme high, federal fertility lotteries now determine who can and can’t reproduce. When one woman learns that she will be permanently sterilized, her faith in the system is shaken. Learn more about Laura Keller – NB from filmmaker Mo Perkins in a recently conducted Skype interview, after the jump.

Transmedia producer Lance Weiler’s Futurestates project, Wish for the Future, is the second part of a trilogy entitled Reboot Stories, an experiential learning project designed to empower the imaginations of disenfranchised students.

Reboot Stories is pushing the boundaries of traditional learning by incorporating technology and multimedia into classrooms that otherwise would lack the resources to do so. Where Robot Heart Stories, the first project in the trilogy, focused on innovating and imagining outer space, Wish for the Future takes a more grounded and personal turn. Through the project’s API, anyone can make a wish for something they’d like to see happen. Wishes are then granted through a creative act such as writing a story or singing a song. Weiler says that the project, when prototyped, helped kids act in a meaningful leadership role with adults.

“We did a wonderful ‘think and do’ lab with kids in charter schools in New York, where the kids came in and they led adult teams through the ideation of ideas that they had and their wishes for the future,” Weiler says. “And those wishes were amazing.”

Read the rest of the story at Mashable

Join us for a social screening of FUTURESTATES Episode 1: Advantageous with filmmaker Jennifer Phang, who will be taking part in the screening to talk about the film and take your questions live.

Participants can join for free by signing in with Facebook or directly on the site, interacting with other viewers and panelists in real-time, while watching the film. Viewers can comment, ask questions, take polls, and even express their feelings about what they’re watching through a variety of tools on the site. This is an entirely new way of experiencing documentary films and it is inherently social.

Advantageous: April 6, 2012 at 11AM PT/2PM ET

Gwen is the spokesperson for a radical technology allowing people to overcome their natural disadvantages and begin life anew. But when her job and family are in crisis, will she undergo the procedure herself?

To participate in this screening, click this link.

The film follows Gwen — a spokesperson for a radical technology allowing people to overcome their natural disadvantages and begin life anew. Learn more about Advantageous from director Jennifer Phang in a recently-conducted Skype interview, after the jump.