It’s hard to believe 2010 is almost here! As the holidays approach, it’s more difficult to imagine preparations for a new event have already begun.
While there were certainly mistakes to learn from, we shouldn’t ignore our successes in 2009. This was artistically and organizationally our most participatory year to date. Despite a surprising 50% growth in attendance (and three major burns), we left it cleaner than previous years. All those with burning art installations took responsibility to clean the debris and plant seed in its place (some even came back a week later to ensure this was done.) Today, a couple months after RR 2009, there is already some grass replacing the scorched earth. Fuck yeah!
All the participants who built and tore down the city (filled with structures people building, cooking, drinking, eating, performing, & dancing) once again left no trace.
Despite the most relentless rainfalls since RR has gone outdoors (turning many tents into swimming pools) there was a major growth in collaborative art structures & villages.
We have seen outstanding readiness & preparation from those who learned from previous years (and no major injuries to report!)
All the team leads, and I mean this, all of them did a kickass job of building talented, responsible, and effective teams who played a major role in this year’s success. Our greatest achievement was collaborative radical inclusion, and we wish to push it even further in 2010. I am proud to say we have gotten the official invite to return to the same land, and we accepted. Recycled Rainbow will begin on Thursday September 23rd, and end on Sunday September 26th.
A once sleeping event awakens to new opportunities & challenges; opportunities for growth (internally and externally,) and there are challenges to build an even more imaginative invisible city.
It starts with our most grueling process of the year: DESIGN!
Art by John G.