VOODOO EXPERIENCE: REHAGE ENTERTAINMENT TEAMS WITH LIFE IS ART FOUNDATION | KK PROJECTS TO DISPLAY VARIETY OF ART

SET FOR HALLOWEEN WEEKEND
OCTOBER 30, 31 AND NOVEMBER 1

More than 20 local and international artists will create large scale site-specific pieces utilizing the landscape of the Voodoo Experience festival grounds. The interactive, multi-sensory experience will be curated by Life Is Art Foundation | KK Projects’ Kirsha Kaechele and VOODOO founder and producer Stephen Rehage; overall exhibition themes for the pieces include “Natural Order,” “Homage to an Unseen Intelligence” and the “Louisiana Wetlands.”

“All of the VOODOO installations will represent the betterment of humanity and the intelligent use of the earth's resources through a sustainable collaboration with nature,” says Kaechele.  

“We look at the festival’s production as being a work of art, so this feels like a natural extension,” Rehage adds.  “With the city’s art community flourishing, this seemed like a good time for VOODOO to honor another aspect of New Orleans’ culture in an interactive way.”

Some of the highlights include Hammock Mother, a giant hammock constructed to hold 30 festival-goers; it is currently being woven by the Zapara tribe in the remote upper Amazon, an indigenous, shamanic culture battling extinction. The hammock will utilize the native approach to architecture juxtaposed against the 90 degree-based modern building structure and serves to highlight the contrast in our understandings of nature and the importance of developing systems based on collaboration with nature.  The piece serves to illustrate how our approach to building can be informed by evolving our methods to incorporate ecological systems such as symbiosis, adaptation and natural efficiency.  Also look for Obelisk, a 30-foot functional analemmatic sundial that will reacquaint viewers with the simple movement of the sun and time.   At nightfall, the illuminated beacon will serve as an interactive, communal meeting place.

Additionally, in order to expand the VOODOO EXPERIENCE celebration with the neighborhood, Rehage Entertainment and Life is Art Foundation | KK Projects’ are in discussions with the New Orleans Film Festival and the Mid City Neighborhood Organizations, City Park and NOMA officials to present a series of additional interactive art experiences on the front lawn of the New Orleans Museum of Art–all free and open to the public.  These offerings include an outdoor cinema, a giant piñata (to be broken open Halloween night) and a neighborhood trick-or-treat performance event.

For additional information about the art and celebrations, please visit: www.thevoodooexperience.com/2009/art_installations.php.

About VOODOO EXPERIENCE:  The 11th annual VOODOO EXPERIENCE will take place over Halloween weekend (Friday, October 30, Saturday, October 31 and Sunday, November 1) in New Orleans’ City Park.  Featuring more than 100 artists, this year’s line-up will be anchored by performances from Eminem–in his first full performance in over four years and only scheduled concert of 2009–and KISS, one of the most influential and successful rock and roll bands of all-time.  They’ll join the reunited Jane’s Addiction–with all of the original members–along with the previously announced Widespread Panic who’ll perform as part their annual Halloween tradition (1997-2002) of live shows in the city.  For the most up-to-the-minute information, please visit www.thevoodooexperience.com.

About Life Is Art Foundation | KK Projects:  Life Is Art Foundation | KK Projects is based in the St. Roch neighborhood of New Orleans in six previously abandoned structures: a former bakery, a storefront, and four 1800s houses. The properties sit in a one block area of the derelict neighborhood on North Villere between Music and Arts streets. Each structure houses a site-specific installation for a three month exhibition period. Local and international artists are invited to work with the spaces as they find them, as well as with the surrounding physical and cultural environment. KKProjects is dedicated to an ongoing conversation with its neighbors. Through art projects involving the greater social ecosystem, the project exists to cultivate creativity and inspire the hearts, minds, and economy of the St Roch neighborhood and its visitors.  More information can be found at www.kkprojects.org/.