Sarah Kornfeld
I am a creative producer with fifteen years of experience developing international multidisciplinary programs. I define my work as hybrid communications, which is the blending of social programming, communications, and art to excite people to make change and stimulate innovation.
I bring my training as a producer, writer, social entrepreneur and activist to all that I do.
(Here comes the 3rd person part): Sarah’s practices include the following:
The biosphere:
Sarah is a passionate advocate and communicator about the Biosphere. She has worked with the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, The Institute for the Future, The California Academy of Science, and Rebecca Costa.
Additionally, she is a collaborator with Dr. Wallace J. Nichols, and co-founder of the global Blue Marble Project. The Blue Marble Project is born from the wildly popular, viral 2010 Blue Marbles Initiative, where blue marbles have been shared around the world with millions of people in celebration of the planet (and Jacques Cousteau).
The project is also innovating approaches, and the conversation about how neuroscience informs our connection to our biosphere–our one blue marble–to help inspire people to LIVEBLUE. The project aims to be a global program over the next five years that equals TED, while pushing reform and policy for the planet in totally unusual, yet highly effective ways.
We are developing global partnerships to develop Neuro-conservation studies, while also producing summits, events, art happenings, salons and general BLUE fun.
To this end, we produced BLUEMiND – the first summit on our brains on ocean. The summit brought together leading neuroscientists, futurists, educators, artists and citizens at the California Academy of Sciences on June 2nd, 02011. The summit was the first of it’s kind, and was livecast to millions of people. BLUEMiND 2 is already in planning. Wired, The San Jose Mercury News, Fast Company and others have written/are writing on the first summit. J, and the Summit, made the cover story of Outside Magazine in December 2011, http://bit.ly/rR7oWZ
Partners include: The California Academy of Science, Environmental Defense Fund, Capacitor Labs, Stanford, INI, and others.
In 2009 she founded a collaboration between futurists, scientists and artists. The team is comprised of Dr. Wallace J. Nichols, Jake Dunagan, Sarah and Stuart Candy.Their installation “Plastic Century” plasticcentury.org was commissioned in 2010 in celebration of Jacques Cousteau’s 100th birthday for the California Academy of Sciences. The installation explored the massive impact plastic has had on the biosphere. The team continues to collaborate on projects ranging from BLUEMiND, advisory projects and general fun.
Fast Company did a profile of the team and the piece, and garnered millions of views and buzz within social media orbits ( Fast Company Article: http://bit.ly/brAdTA) The group was in residency at the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts (GAFFTA) in San Francisco, California. Weeks after the premier, the installation was invited to be featured at the Peter Benchley Awards, The Blue Ocean Film Festival and The Hub.
Art and Technology:
In 2001 she founded BvNW Group (Brave New World Group) bvnwgroup.com offering strategic creative producing, innovation programs, and communications consulting for those integrating art, media and technology. Early to identify the excitement that hybrid collaborations between artists and technologists create, Sarah has been a passionate advocate and champion of artists, educational and cultural institutions exploring narratives, site specific works, and cultural innovation. Sarah’s clients have included: The Kitchen, Pop!Tech, UC Irvine, The Beall Center for Art and Technology, ArtsBridge America, The da Vinci Research Center for Learning Through the Arts, Zaccho Dance Theater, Ame Hoch, Mary Frank and others.
Marketing Communications/Innovation:
An experienced marketing communications executive, Sarah has worked in Silicon Valley for over fifteen years. She has worked with iconic companies including Netflix, Sun Microsystems, SparkPR and Burson-Marsteller. Her areas of expertise include producing media, media relations, developing thought leadership salons and advisory boards, defining and managing events and meet-ups, creating social media “movements” and launching branded programs related to new technology. She has nurtured and launched dozens of start-ups (markets include: social media and video, GeoSpatial technologies, cloud computing, enterprise software, and mobile). Some ventures she has provided communications and marketing programs for include Obscura Digital, Keyhole (now Google Earth), Vpype, Escalate and others.
Education and all that Jazz:
Sarah earned her Bachelor of Arts from Sarah Lawrence College, and has additional artistic training from Aspen Music School, Harvard Dance Program and The Royal Court Theater, London.
She has sat/sits on the advisory boards of Capacitor Lab, CalArts, The Kitchen, ZeroOne, Plastic Pollution Coalition and Vanguard Visions.
Writing:
She blogs here at whatsarahsees.com and has been a contributing writer to posts on the planet for The Huffington Post (one example here: “Petrolholics Anonymous” http://bit.ly/bAw3p1) and is also a blogger for We Blog the World weblogtheworld.org. She is the author of a memoir, and is finishing her first novel.
