The portal was housed at both East Hardy High School and Moorefield High School during its time in Hardy County. Image courtesy of Wendy Zolla Treadway.
In a county geographically situated among mountains and sprawling national forests, the Hardy Portal Project connected rural Hardy County, West Virginia with communities across the world, from Myanmar, to Nigeria, to Iraq, to Germany, to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and beyond. With support from West Virginia Humanities Council, the state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Hardy County Schools was able to participate in a global project developed by Shared Studios. Through their distinctive gold shipping containers—known as portals—equipped with video and audio technology, Shared Studios connects people all over the world in conversation.
“The kind of information [one gets from the portal] is really important for people not just in rural America, but all over America, to get firsthand. One of the goals … is to really take the media and journalism out of the experience in the portal so that people can hear firsthand from one another what our lives are like.”
–Wendy Zolla Treadway, Portal Project Director for Hardy County Schools
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The portal was open to all students in Hardy County Schools, and many community members took part in various connections. Image courtesy of Wendy Zolla Treadway.
Michelle Wolfe, East Hardy High School English teacher and portal volunteer, listening to original poetry from Lagos, Nigeria. Image courtesy of Wendy Zolla Treadway.
The portal offered students and the broader community a unique opportunity to connect with other communities located throughout the world. For example, a TED Salon and Doha Debates event live in New York brought Hardy County students together with portals in Doha, Qatar; Kigali, Rwanda; Herat, Afghanistan; and Mexico City for dialogue. They discussed what is most difficult to talk about in their particular geographic areas and strategized on how to produce more positive dialogue. Individual teachers also used the portal to enhance their curriculums. Some examples include a high school English class connecting with a portal curator in Mexico City to discuss Fahrenheit 451, and Spanish classes connecting to various Spanish-speaking countries so students could talk with Spanish speakers their own age.
Hardy county connected with a Christmas Market in Berlin, Germany to exchange Christmas traditions. Image courtesy of Wendy Zolla Treadyway.
During a high school football game halftime, attendees stepped into the portal to connect to a Day of the dead celebration in Mexico City. Image courtesy of Wendy Zolla Treadway.
Smokey the Bear visited the portal to showcase an iconic American symbol to the world. Image courtesy of Wendy Zolla Treadway.
The school district also opened the portal to their community on multiple occasions. Events like Friday night football games became exchanges with Day of the Dead festivities in Mexico City or a musical exchange with a rapper in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Community members were able to showcase their own culture, for instance by inviting American icon Smokey the Bear to visit, or exchanging Christmas traditions with a Christmas Market in Berlin. And during the county’s annual Heritage Weekend, a local, prolific quilter exchanged expertise with fellow women entrepreneurs and textile artists in Honduras. As Project Director Wendy Zolla Treadway described, “[Hardy County is] geographically isolated. We don’t have a cosmopolitan museum, or an airport, or many foreigners coming in and out of our area. I think that made [these exchanges] really so important.”
