“A Way to Keep Our Culture Present”

Scenes from Vermont Folklife’s Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program

This exhibit is on view at Burlington City Arts May 6th through June 4th 2024

Since 1992,Vermont Folklife’s Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program (VTAAP) has supported nearly 400 apprenticeships in artforms that reflect the shared cultural history, values, and aesthetics of the groups that practice them. VTAAP works to sustain this living cultural heritage by fostering mentorship between community-recognized traditional artists and less-experienced apprentices interested in learning both an artistic form and the social, cultural and historical context in which it emerged and continues to be practiced.   

Through this program, Vermont Folklife has supported vital artistic practices of Vermonters from a broad range of cultural communities, including native Abenaki, the descendants of European settlers and early immigrants, and more recent arrivals of individuals with immigrant and refugee backgroundswho have arrived more recently. New American community leaders have embraced this program as an important tool for assuring the transmission of cultural knowledge and practices in the face of dislocation and enormous change. 

This exhibit uses photography and the words of the artists to explore ten traditional art forms which have been supported by VTAAP over the last three decades.

VTAAP receives support from the Vermont Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.