Meet Carina Immer, the powerhouse and brains behind the Great Shift...the embodiment of the realization that we can learn meaningful crafts from our neighbors and source ecologically sound, quality-made necessities directly from local community. There is so much to talk about when it comes to this lady...her star shines so bright. In addition to managing her 9 to 5 while building and executing the vision for the future of Great Shift, she recently wrote and produced the latest music video "HungerSite" for the band Goose. Crazy talented.
Check out the Great Shift website and make sure you mark you calendar for their 4/30/22 FREE Spring Market event. Details HERE
Click HERE to listen to the Episode.
About Carina:
I’m 26, have lived in CT my entire life-I love storytelling, connecting people, building community.-I come from a family of artists and musicians, however the pendulum effect led me to not pursuing music or the arts and instead I pursued studies in international agricultural economics / trade flows in college, and worked for importers and trade houses after graduating in 2013.-I work as a coffee importer for my 9-5pm job, which involves buying green (raw) coffee from coffee farmers and selling to roasters. I write a lot for my job, which includes me interviewing farmers and producing groups and sharing their story with a global community.
After a while, mainly during COVID lockdown, I realized I wasn’t scratching my “creative” itch in my day to day life, and had major tunnel vision on my 9-5 job. I yearned to learn new things outside of coffee, hang out with a more creative community, challenge myself, and use my business skills to invest in artists and makers that I believe in - and eventually create a platform for them to share their story.
Enter “great shift” - which was essentially born from my urge to go on a journey in learning new trades and skills from artists and makers in my friend group and greater community, and inviting the public to come along with me on that journey. Great shift was also partially a response to the covid blues - being confined to home, not being able to connect with folks in person, slipping into a bland cycle of living, having a generally dismal outlook on the world. I wanted to reverse this perspective in my own life immediately, and help others reverse theirs.
I named it “great shift” because I believe there were so many “great shifts” in folks lives all over the world during covid - folks realized they weren’t happy at their jobs, not happy where they lived, not happy in their relationship - and made a change. Although covid has been tumultuous, I think this is a really lovely biproduct of the era and think it’s causing so many people to change the way they lives their lives.
-through great shift I want to help people who don’t see themselves as a proper “artist” to step out of the societal norms / boundaries and try something new. And feel proud of themselves. I call this community “the creative curious”.
My business partner and co-founder Barbara Slaine, who is the founder of a wellness platform named “lyphe balance” is a huge reason why this all started in the first place - back in august I told her about my idea and she pushed me to make it happen and offered to help me out through hosting events on her land
