Exciting things have been in store for Winona State University students this year, one of them being the iDMAa 2025 Conference and Festival, taking place on Oct. 9-11th. This year, this mass-communication-oriented conference sought to explore the theme of folk media.
“The Folk Media Conference and Festival at Winona State University will focus on digital media and art from the perspective of ‘folklore,’” according to Visit Winona. “Through workshops, performances, exhibitions, and conference presentations, participants will explore the creation of media by everyday people through urban legends, memes, zines, DIY media, play, underground music, fandom, found media, and other forms of grassroots expression.”
Professor Davin Heckman was a presenter and an organizer of the iDMAa 2025 Conference and Festival, playing a key part in it.
“This year, the folk media theme, we’re really kind of leaning into this idea of grassroots expression,” Heckman said. “People make meaning from the things that they have available to them, using tools and techniques that they know that they have access to, telling stories and communicating messages, and sharing experiences that come from their everyday lives and sharing those ordinary people.”
On Oct. 9th, Heckman led a presentation on media concepts and practices, also giving many of his students the opportunity to present at the event.
“Every event brings a new surprise to me. I’m learning so much,” Heckman said, while reflecting on the opening session of the conference. “My students were presenting on research they’re doing in one of my classes and they were great. That was so fun and then they answered questions and their answers were so good.”
One of Heckman’s favorite things about being a mass communication professor at Winona State is helping his students succeed and grow. “The students we have here are great. They like to work hard and apply themselves to things as a way of learning,” Heckman said. “Working with students and helping them see the ways that they’re good at things really makes me happy too.”
There were many engaging sessions for participants to attend, ranging from a talk by Negin Ehtesabian and Patrick Lichty about long distance romance and the art it inspired, a folk concert/workshop by Dante DeGrazia, a collaborative wheat pasting art project among many other events.
Heckman expressed that one of the goals of this festival is to offer this sort of opportunity to anyone. At a conference such as this, with so many sessions and interesting presenters, it would usually require lots of travel and spending. The iDMAa 2025 Conference and Festival is free of cost to any student who is interested regardless of their major. For people who desire to travel to attend the festival, Dr. Heckman and others help provide information to make that travel possible.
“This year we didn’t do any registration fee. We always try to keep it very affordable for students regardless, but also affordable for people who, you know, maybe are just independent artists or curious community members,” Heckman said. “That’s what we want to do, you know? Our goal is to bring the world to Winona.”
