Miranda Loud, a filmmaker and musician who uses the performing arts to encourage environmental stewardship, will give a public presentation and screening of several short films at Southwestern University on Tuesday, Feb. 1. Her presentation, titled “Saving Elephants - Saving Ourselves: The Power of the Arts to Affect Social Change,” will begin at 6 p.m. in room 110 of the F.W. Olin Building and will be followed by a question-and-answer session.

Loud has been passionate about reconnecting audiences with nature since 2005. In 2006 she founded the non-profit organization NatureStage, which combines multi-media with live performance as new way to reach audiences and motivate them to action. Her multimedia works involving film with live performance on environmental themes have been hailed by the Boston Globe as a new genre; her latest work about the relationship between honeybees and beekeepers won a Gold Star Award in 2009 from the Massachusetts Cultural Council for “a work of innovation and excellence in the arts, humanities, and interpretive sciences, and which fosters community engagement.” 

Loud’s talk at Southwestern will touch on the power of the arts in heightening our inter-connection with other species using the elephant as a gateway. She will detail the plight of elephants, specifically the Asian elephant because of its close ties with humans over the centuries, and how their situation provides a powerful mirror to humans. She will discuss ways to foster compassion and the challenges that need to be overcome in building a world where we can emotionally handle the amount of information we now receive via different media. Through this, she will challenge us to think about what being powerful really means and the need for us to shift from the inside out.

For more information, visit www.theelephantproject.org and www.mirandaloudpresenter.com. Loud’s visit to Southwestern is sponsored by several programs and departments, including Animal Behavior, Environmental Studies, Communication Studies, Paideia and the Office of the Provost.