A NEW $35 REWARD: THE URBAN RABBIT HOLE T SHIRT:

remember that time? well, it's back!

the urban rabbit hole t shirt now joins the rewards for the wonderland journey.

be part of the story, and create your own story too!

here's what www.trendcentral.com wrote about it:

The brainchild of a journalist and a marketing whiz, My Urban Rabbit Hole is a new customizable t-shirt brand, community gathering, and celebration of local living all in one. At the tangible level, it is a t-shirt with a map of a city on it, but the concept goes far beyond silk screened cotton: individuals use permanent red fabric paint to plot five points on the map that have personal significance to them, telling their stories through urban geography. Turning the t-shirts into an experience unto themselves, the t-shirts can’t just be purchased. The process of getting one’s hands on the garment includes “a series of mysterious hoops, clues and trap doors,” one element of which includes procuring a secret quickly-expiring password which is the only way to gain entrance to the website.

Lucky recipients pick up their t-shirts at an invite-only, live participatory art event where they plot their personal reference points, and reflect and share their stories. Currently, the t-shirts are only available for lower Manhattan but there are plans for t-shirts for Berlin, Istanbul, Shanghai and Barcelona. In today’s global and mobile environment, young people are increasingly looking to forge a personal connection with their local communities through buying locally produced goods and participating in local clubs and events. More than that, local neighborhoods are also being recognized as a key contributing factor to the formation of personal identity. And with the growth of the visual mapping trend, expect even more products to use physical locations to help consumers document and share their stories.

Greetings from Wonderland via New York, Barcelona, Berlin, Rio, Bogota, Istanbul, Tel Aviv, and Paris.

Delighted to meet curious kindred spirits. We're ever so glad you stopped by.

This kickstarter was instigated because we were given a chance to realize this project. We have been granted 65% sponsorship to delve into wonderland and to embark on this journey. However, it's not simply about making the journey for us. We are committed to sharing this and amplifying it, creating a transformative experience through the events held in each city, both on and offline, as well as the lives of the artists and everyone else that is part of the journey.

The communication around this, creating a website and events to share this experience with you, and the 7 artist exhibition to retell the story are essential for us. A kickstart to this will truly reach our goals of the reasons and the message and bring meritocracy to this project and to the artists involved.  

"There's a Wonderland, I'll meet you there"
a rabbit hole project

This project is a journey to help us understand connectivity, the way that we create communities, and to discover something that simplifies essence beyond the borders and paradigms that disconnect us; a looking glass into a clearer crystal world.

We've been fortunate to have had some brilliant minds advising this project, including some rabbit hole thinkers like Assaf Biderman, Associate Director of the MIT Senselab, Don Rodrigues, Rhodes Island Professor of English Literature  and some of our most admired performers.

Here's the plot: June 13th - 27th, 2012

• 7 international award winning artists from 7 unique disciplines from the rabbit hole have been selected to embark on an investigation.

• A train from Barcelona to Tel Aviv.

• They will stop in 7 cities, spending 2 nights in each city.

• Select cities are Barcelona, Paris, Berlin, Istanbul, Belgrade, Tel Aviv. Athens or Bucharest (TBD)

• They will create mysterious happenings in each city, giving a platform to the artists that might fancy the occasion.

• A film crew Tendencias.Tv will follow them.
• Each artist is commissioned to create a work based on this journey.
• The works will be exhibited in a group show and performance in New York this fall. 

Selected from a pool of 200+ artists.....

The 7 have a big task at hand:

The project is positioned as a mystical journey - where the 7 pilgrims will stop in 7 valleys. They will explore connectivity. They will explore mobility. Traveling from Western Europe to Eastern Europe and then the Middle East, they will investigate a crystal sparkle that connects us. The trip will involve engaging in sensory experiences, live storytelling, creative seduction, immense curiosity, shimmering magic.

The practical question also remains: how will they reach Tel Aviv?

Each artist has been commissioned to each create an original work, inspired from the journey and theme, to be exhibited in an interactive show and performance in New York this fall. 

They must share what they discover through filmed footage, documented by an online TV crew and put on social media networks.

This is an offline-online  global project reaching the physical senses of 5000+people in 7 countries and the clicks of 500000+ worldwide.

Introducing the travelers:

• Gandja Monteiro, Filmmaker, Los Angeles / Rio de Janeiro. http://gandjamonteiro.com/
  "I believe in movement, whether it’s the camera shifting angle or focus, or a person traveling from one place to another - even if just across the street. The adjustment, the transposition, moves me."

• Miguel Cardenas, Professor MFA Columbia University. Bogota. http://www.miguelcardenas.net

• Lynsey Peisinger, Performance Artist. Marina Abromovic company, Paris. 

• Irmak Canevi. Visual Artist, Istanbul. http://www.irmakcanevi.com"[Clickety-clack!] Driven by an engine of creativity is a magical 'caboose' where stories are made. [Clickety-clack!] Our train of thought is station-ary. [Clickety-clack!] [Choo choo!] This is Crystal Railways"

• Nico Iliev, Photographer, New York. http://www.nicoiliev.com                        "A connection is a spark. It requires motion and friction. It's how our senses mysterious emit emotion."

• Anna Zoe Schmidt. Author.http://annazoeschmidt.net                                 "They say the soul travels at 8 kilometers  per hour. Some call that jet lag, I call that life."

• Samina Virani. Founder of the rabbit hole. http://www.saminavirani.com
  "This journey itself has been inspired by a number of philosophies, namely a poem called “The Conference of the Birds” by Farid Ud-din Attar. However, the archetypal nature of a journey has been present in fables throughout time. The mystics, the gnostics, the situationists, even children’s cartoon heroes have embarked on journeys, crusades, in the quest of a mystical ethereal discovery. Noah’s Ark,  tales of Ibn Arabi, Enid Blyton’s famous 5, and of course, little Alice. A journey using the senses to explore real connectivity between humans. It's about magical realism.There's no such thing as coincidences. We are looking for a formula to understand that."

About the rabbit hole:

It all began in 2008 in New York City. A serendipitous accident of sorts, where a Soho loft full of personalities and creators were in desperation of reinventing forms and discovering new meanings. 

Our common bond has been a belief and a commitment to a search for a more magical, ethereal quality that links our spirits.

We question, reinvent, deconstruct paradigms, rethink structures. We create provocations to challenge the way we perceive, feel, and connect.

We do this through creating inspiration journeys commissioning multi-disciplinary artists to set a creatively seductive environment for passengers / the public to rethink.

We stimulate the senses in all our scenarios, a technique certified by the Theater of the Senses.

We have promoted artists through exhibitions, press, as well as linking artists from different mediums and cultures with each other, creating possibilities for new interactions.

We have created at the Chelsea Art Museum, onboard a 14 time travelling bus in New York City, a catamaran in the Mediterranean Sea and in various galleries in New York City.  

Somehow we have grown into a group of 1400 or so creatives in 42 countries, each own personal experience of how he/she entered the rabbit hole community.

 

Where will your contribution go?

It goes without saying that so much generosity has fueled the rabbit hole's ventures. Artists' belief, thinkers, academic advisors dedicating their thoughts, time, resources to provide energy and input into the rabbit hole.

Our trip to Wonderland has finally won the belief of a sponsor who will support us financially with 65% of the funds.

Now we look for completion. This is about communicating, documenting and sharing our journey and its discoveries, and providing artists with enough budget to affectively create original works for the show in New York.

Directly:

• To build our website to share the discoveries of the journey with you.
• To send daily telegrams. 
• To create meaningful events in each city that engage and connect people from the 7 cities.
• To give artists a production budget for the show in New York.

***Big special thanks to Tendencias.Tv for making this video.