Kickstarter

This project is the collaborative effort of many young musicians, dancers, artists, and visionaries to find a way to bring music, art, dance, education, and social and political action to the festival scene in an amazingly innovative way. The GROW: Psychedelic Garden is a way of breaking free of the traditional "eco-village" found at most festivals and integrating it with the artistic and fun aspects of the festival.

The festival is known as Mint Green and will be held from August 24-25 at the Salem County Fairgrounds in Woodstown, NJ (just 40 minutes from Philly). Mint Green's mission is to, "provide a mixture of installation, interactive and live art, with many of the projects focusing on the idea of community and our impact on the environment as well as one another."

However, the pavilion is actually being developed and designed by a dedicated team from various organizations outside of the festival. Kristen Grennan and Gregory Sarafan of the music, arts, and politics blog, Sensible Reason, are spearheading the project. Justin Parkinson of Officially Outrageous will be working on video production and recording involving the pavilion. InkLine has already signed on to working with music production. Alana Mchtavy of Womping Kitty Productions will be aiding in a modern dance coordination known as the Psy Ballet. Other organizations involved in the production of the pavilion at the festival will include: the Binghamtronica Productions Group, HeadCount, Oxfam America, and Imagination Overload.

So what will the GROW: Psychedelic Garden actually look like? The Garden will be located at the Sensible Reason pavilion, provided by the Mint Green festival. The vision for the Garden is to have both live and anamatronic plants. The anamatronic plants will spin, grow, and change colors, some will have different textured materials, some will have images projected on them, and some will have lights coming off them. They will all be interactive and touchable. Music will be performed by up and coming DJs at all times during the festival. A collaborative dance troupe will be hosting a Psy-Ballet, featuring singers, hoopers, and dancers. Throughout the Garden, tags on the plants will provide information on world hunger issues, the local and organic food movements, climate change, and more. If attendees are moved by the information they see, HeadCount and Oxfam America booths will be available with information on actions that can be taken, such as voter registration, concert outreach, petitions, t-shirt making to show their support to the world, and more. Festival goers will also have the opportunity express their reactions and festival testimonials with the video production group Officially Outrageous.

How do we know we’ll be successful? The people putting on this event are experienced and dedicated workers. Most of the collaborators have worked previously on Binghamtronica, the first ever music festival at Binghamton University, featuring artists such as Brothers Past, Boombox, Archnemisis, Jeff Bujak, InkLine, Solaris, and Horizon Wireless. The first year the event was put on in 2011, there was no budget and the entire festival was put on by dedicated volunteers. It was extraordinarily successful, with hundreds of attendees and thousands of dollars raised (which in the were donated to HeadCount and Oxfam America). It was so successful, it was put on again for a second year in 2012 and was again a great success. All of our supporters are also exceptionally talented artists and innovators. Please feel free to check out their websites: Sensible Reason, Officially Outrageous, Imagination Overload, InkLine, HeadCount, and Oxfam America.

What will $3,300 go towards? Here is an outline of our minimal expected costs for the Garden:
1.Performers, 10, $80 each = $800
a. 5 dancers
b. 3 DJs
c. 2 VJs
2. Actual Staging $1500
a. anamatronic/light up trees & flowers
b. real plants
c. power cords, lights, supplies, etc.
d. installation workers
3. Transportation $400
4. Video of our event $300
5. Website fee $300
TOTAL: $3,300

Here is an image of the space we have: