Hello comics comrades, and greetings from The Projects headquarters!
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As you may know, we are in the final week of fundraising for The Projects, a new breed of comics and experimental arts festival happening in Portland on October 19-21. We are nudging close to our goal, and really would appreciate your support so that we can succeed in keeping the festival free and in bringing amazing artists from across the country and over the ocean to Portland for a weekend of creative mayhem!
Perhaps you're wondering what this new festival will look like...
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The Projects is inspired by a constellation of new festivals in the Balkans and southern Europe (including Novo Dobain Serbia, Škver in Croatia (which we also organize!), and Crack! in Rome). These festivals are free and staunchly non-commercial. The purpose is to bring artists and audiences together to create, collaborate, inspire, and play! The Projects will be an intensive and exhilarating weekend of WORKSHOPS, PROJECTIONS, EXHIBITIONS, PERFORMANCES, PANELS, READINGS, and COLLABORATIVE ART PROJECTS, oh my! During the daytime, the spacious new home of the Independent Publishing Resource Center will be home base:
- Le Dernier Cri, the legendary French collective, will be leading an ongoing screenprinting workshop where participants can burn screens and print posters and collaborate on a screenprinted book (possibly in 3-D!)
- Igor Hofbauer, the Croatian master of surreal Eastern-Bloc graphics, will be transforming the walls into a huge mural, and everyone is invited to pitch in!
- Other guest artists like Austin English, Jason T Miles, Matthew Thurber, Sammy Harkham, Jonny Negron, Dunja Jankovic, and Kevin Hooyman will all have a space to curate and create a project or a spectacle for the weekend!
- There will be a mask-making project and an epic collaborative comic making the rounds, for anyone to grab and contribute a panel or two or twenty...
- There will also be a pop-up shop selling peoples' wares -- artists won't have to be stuck behind tables, we'll take care of that so folks are free to play!
- Meanwhile, upstairs there will be panels and readings, and on the roof-top garden, we will create a den of relaxation (a giant tent!), a place to hang out and meet new people and draw! draw! draw!
In the evenings, there will be events and revelry at different venues across Portland:
- Friday night there will be a reading and book signing by Sammy Harkham and Jonny Negron at FLOATING WORLD COMICS. An exhibition will adorn the walls and all your lovely faces will adorn the room! Many folks will just be arriving from out of town, so this will be the time for Portlanders to welcome our guests and catch up with old comrades
- Saturday night we will reconvene at THE HOLLYWOOD THEATER for an animation and noise performance by Le Dernier Cri, Matthew Thurber, Plink Flojd, and more! Afterwards, there will be a house party for those who are not yet ready for sleep...
- Sunday night we will all march up the street from the IPRC to HOLOCENE for a grand closing night bash! Experimental Half Hour, E*rock, and more will delight our senses, the weekend's loot of masks will be there for those who want to parade incognito, and we will dance into the early hours and raise our glasses in delerious delightful exhaustion!
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We would love your help in spreading the word about the festival and the fundraiser in these crucial last few days. Please, help make the inaugural year of The Projects a bright spot on the map of independent and experimental comics!!
With big love and deep appreciation,
Dunja, Lisa, Jason, and JTM
