There is a curiosity at the heart of Tate Chamberlin’s life. A wondering about how we might all live a little better in a world that seems committed to conflict. He is a man who seeks to understand, a facilitator of progress who welcomes the disagreement.

“I like to tell people to pay attention to their neck hair,” said Chamberlin. “When something makes your neck hair stand up or catch fire, that’s when you’re supposed to lean in. Trust is built through tension.”

A classically trained graphic designer, the Colorado-raised Chamberlin has charted a less than ordinary path since graduating from Montana State University nearly two decades ago. His aesthetic acumen and social scientist leanings led to the creation of Chamberlin Productions, a company that quickly became a force in southwest Montana and beyond for putting on concerts, music festivals, and assorted other artistic and cultural events. It was a good path for a guy who has “always liked promoting shit,” and it was also a great training ground; a dojo of sorts for a young man developing a diverse skill set for being able to turn visions and hopes into reality.

But Chamberlin was after more than just throwing parties and creating singular social experiences. To hear him tell it, he has a bit of an inner activist, and working in traditional event production started to feel a tad too one-dimensional. “People engaging in where their hearts are leading them – activism in all its forms – energizes me,” explained Chamberlin. “Eventually, I had to chase that.”

To that end, I AM INTERCHANGE creates podcasts, written stories, interviews, photojournalism, live events, and carefully curated thought salons meant to investigate some of the more controversial and “taboo” subjects in today’s public discourse. Prior topics have included the question of if water is a human right, Native American reconciliation, wealth gap inequities, the various meanings and interpretations of “OK, Boomer,” the future of work, and the promises and pitfalls of Web 3.0. “The goal is to hold space for the polarities [on a subject], keep calm, and then try and explore what is behind those surface tensions,” said Chamberlin. “You have to get into the tensions that surround something if you want to understand and solve a problem.” The end result is a deep and nuanced dive into topics that traditional media typically reduces into a few rhetorical sound bites. In short, I AM INTERCHANGE is holistic journalism done with hope for a better tomorrow.

A recent partnership with Hatch, a Bozeman-based but internationally focused non-profit dedicated to ideas, innovation, and problem solving informed by the United Nations’ SDGs, has helped super-size the network that Chamberlin is able to draw from for his various adventures in modern journalism. Taking a page from the hands-on and exploratory ethos of Blunderbuss, Chamberlin isn’t one to just stay home and use Zoom to make some interviews happen in a safe and isolated way. Instead, he often travels to where the stories or interesting conversations are happening. Be it a Farm Bill impact lab in Kansas City, a jungle in Mexico, or a boat in Egypt, he engages people directly at their point of interest and puts his finger on the pulse in real time. There is, after all, an unalienable authenticity in being where the action is, and that authenticity helps create a relatability that too much media misses these days. “I’m creating journalism around these endeavors as they are emerging in real time,” said Chamberlin. “The podcasts and stories encapsulate the whole experience of a topic so that it might look and feel like something communities around the world can relate to…By facilitating through tension, Interchange delivers truly informed storytelling.”