This year’s Aspen Ideas Festival will highlight America’s 250th and Colorado’s 150th celebrations.
The international gathering will reflect on America’s past with art demonstrations, while looking toward its future with the rise in artificial intelligence, a changing economy and the fate of democracy.
The festival begins Thursday and runs until July 1.
Anthony Hesselius is its Executive Producer.
He spoke with Aspen Public Radio’s Regan Mertz about what is special about this year's festival.
The conversation below has been edited for clarity and length.
Regan Mertz: We have America's 250, Colorado's 150 and the World Cup in the U.S.
So, could you talk to me about, with all these milestones in mind, what went into programming for this year?
Anthony Hesselius: I think we saw America's 250 as a huge opportunity. It's a chance to reflect. It's a chance to come together and think about how we live [and] what shaped the way we live today.
At Ideas, we always want to look forward, and so a lot of our programs are really about discussions of solutions [and] discussions of the best ideas that are at the frontier of science, technology, healthcare, the economy [and] the environment.
It’s wonderful to have this gathering of minds that can come together from politics, from corporate America, from nonprofits, from rising generations of people that are going to be shaping the way we live for the next 250 years.
Mertz: Ken Burns has his American Revolution documentary. You have the pianist Lara Downes, who is taking the group through American history through song.
Could you talk to me about that historical programming that you have this year?
Hesselius: It's important because there's this lens that we can examine today through, and of course it's the past, and we try to magnify that in so many ways.
So, you talk about Lara Downes, and music is a wonderful way to story tell. We've brought artists in from various genres to really discuss and demonstrate what has formulated the American musical model the same way we have with art.
We have an AI-driven artist that's coming in from New York, and she's actually building an AI-generative poem for us that's combining the input of the words of the Declaration of Independence with the live transcripts of our sessions that are coming off of our stages, and so it's going to create a piece of art that is literally the intersection of the past and the future.
Mertz: AI, the economy [and] democracy are all big conversations that will be had at Ideas, so how do you face these topics front on?
Hesselius: I think that's the ethos of our Aspen Ideas Festival is to bring together disparate opinions —whether it's about your religion, your view of the economy, your political stance — because we can get those voices on in the room together to hear each other out, understand each other's perspectives.
It happens on stage, it also happens off stage in our audiences. If everyone can leave with a better informed perspective on the issues that are affecting them, then we have achieved our goal. We can have this connection around art, around music, around conversations of the economy, around discussions of our health care, and being understanding that all of them play with and against each other to create the joy and the hope that we all find in our lives.
Mertz: And for Colorado's 150, the Aspen Institute, the Ideas Festival and Ideas Health are international destinations, but with it being held in Colorado, what sort of celebrations will we see?
Hesselius: Well, as a Colorado native myself, I'm very excited about it. So, we have our closing party up at the Smuggler Mine, which is going to be an official Colorado 150 event, which I'm super thrilled about. It's a celebration of Colorado-made products, Colorado Farms. We have Colorado artists that we're featuring on campus this year.
Patrick Shearn with Poetic Kinetics is based in Colorado Springs, and he's created this incredible, colorful aerial display that has been on our campus now for five or six days. I think people have probably come through, they've seen it. But we're trying to celebrate the great ideas that have come from Colorado. I mean, this is where we are, this is our home, and so we want to be able to shine a light on it this year and every year.
Mertz: You're not just looking at the history of the United States or the history of the Aspen Institute, the Ideas Festival is very much looking into the future — looking into the future of America or the future of the institute or the festival.
So, where are we going?
Hesselius: The theme of our festival this year is called, “Declarations of Independence — Past, Present, and Future.” A lot of our programming, and a lot of what our attendees will experience in Aspen and on our campus, is very much forward facing.
We're having interesting, curious conversations around the future of health and wellness. We're talking about AI in all of its forms and facets. We're talking about public policy in ways that we think are important to the public dialog. We're bringing together these voices, so that we can tackle these problems now and feel stronger and more confident as we go into the future together.
