12/10/13

Presenting :33, the newest Miko Kuro's Midnight Tea exhibition book for your hungry art-loving eyes! Sooooo many people helped me make Midnight Tea in Helsinki (the 33rd Midnight Tea) possible especially Bonnie d'Alene, Forum Box, Petteri Cederberg, Sammy Chien, Christopher Shaw, Guitian Li, Alexander Chamas, William Hagy, Lucas Pedersen, Marie Yläoutinen, Mia Martta Mökillä, Tin Ker Bell, Zecarias Ghebreselassie, Emilia Tapprest, and so many more awesome individuals!
>> http://blur.by/1ffx5Pw

10/27/13

So much to do before I get on that plane for my upcoming Midnight Tea in Helsinki, Finland!

2/4/13

Midnight in Mumbai Teaser Video

I had to quickly put something together for an application, so here's a sneak peek at the cycles, which does NO justice whatsoever to Zac Buschmohle's amazing footage which includes all of you in your glory. Next, I need a grant so Stafanya Talenti can go in with her teeth. Fingers crossed!
Video information:
Miko Kuro's Midnight Tea is a collaborative art ritual involving time, tea, and technology. Midnight Tea creator, Natasha Marin, led 12 artists from the USA and Canada to Mumbai, India for a 12-hr-long "art happening" that began at the Tao Gallery in Worli and crossed the city to the Lakeeren Gallery in Colaba. Many local artists including tea sommelier, Snigdha Binjola and members of the group Visual Disobedience, collaborated with the Mumbai Twelve (more here: http://redbird.wix.com/mumbai12) to bring about this once in a lifetime event. Find out more about Miko Kuro's Midnight Tea at www.mikokuro.com.

Camera: Zac Buschmohle, James Cagney
Voice: Christina Springer, Bettina Judd
Tea Service: Luke Moloney, Snigdha Binjola

Special Thanks to Visual Disobedience, Tao Gallery, Lakeeren Gallery and the artists of Mumbai and the surrounding area who made this event a success!

1/2/13

Jet-lagged but Happy 2013!

Mumbai Twelve member, Jumanne Donahue with two Midnight Tea guests. (Tao Gallery, Mumbai)
So glad to be back home in my icy house, wearing my fuzzy bunny jammy-jams and sleeping like an overly-caffeinated nocturnal animal. I gave in this morning around 4 am and had a shower, ate some soup, started researching opportunities for 2013. Honestly, I can't wait to go back to India. India was amazing. Not one moment of the last two weeks was boring.

I want to summarize what happened in Mumbai and Goa, but I'm not sure I can just yet. It's all still a cloud of memories in my head. I'm sitting with my daughter, Romie, and she's helping me remember stuff. Her favorite memory is swimming in the Indian Ocean at the end of the adventure. She also mentioned that taxi cabs in Mumbai need something other than an address to get you where you're going. Tis true! While we were in Worli, we would ask to be dropped off at the Poodar Hospital. Landmarks became very important ways to negotiate space and time!

Mostly, I'm in the present. Facing unpaid bills, a mountain of correspondence, application deadlines, and a family full of sick, sore-throated, coughy, sneezy, but adorable people who need more naps. I am slightly stagnated by my to-do list but determined to start off 2013 by not succumbing to procrastination. On that note, lemme snuggle my Muffin and add to this when I'm more rested. Priorities! Priorities! :)

Happy 2013! Year of the Snake!

12/18/12

Mumbai = Bombay

I'm not sure when to say this journey began. It began in my heart in 2009, late at night, among friends at my home in Seattle. We were discussing time, culture, and everything in between when we mothered and fathered the Midnight Tea in Mumbai project in my livingroom. And like a caterpillar gorging itself into a fat pupa on leaves, I fed this idea mouthfuls of hope and belief for 3 steady years, until today I saw for the first time, the nearing fruition.

I can not express in words the fullness of India. I am only seeing small slices of Mumbai/Bombay-- a city too much for one name alone-- from the windows of weaving taxi cabs and on my walks around the city. My eyes shift back and forth to take it all in, but there is always more to see, even when I sweep them back and forth, back and forth like a blind person's cane. Even the garbage is fascinating.

On day three, I am here. I am rested enough to function without the nausea that comes from jet-lag coupled with motherhood. I am different inside and I feel it seeping into me, spreading out from my center. I can not name it like the city that refuses to choose between Toby or Kunta Kinte. It's a both/and-situation as my friend, Bettina Judd, would say.

When I went to China in 2011 with my children and hosted a Midnight Tea in Kunming with the amazing artists at 943 Studios, I thought I had gone as far outside of my comfort zone as was possible. I could never have successfully completed that project, halfway around the world, alone except for my children, as an English-only speaker, if it hadn't been for Lifen Liu and her amazing ability to multitask the way women have for generations-- with purpose, without excuses, and with an admirable determination to make space for what is necessary in this world.

I am now, a year later, fully present in my gratitude to Lifen, Xiao Mei and Jianbo, who went above and beyond to help me see my vision through. Now in India, Namrata Bhawnani (Visual Disobedience) has stepped into the role of co-facilitator-- being amazingly generous at every opportunity. Whatever I need is made available. No impossible exists in Namrata's world. That is true power and greatness. And I am humbled by it. In a place like Mumbai, where there is heartbreaking poverty at every turn, finding people like Namrata, who can see through all the potential problems to the solution-- an answer, is simply awe-inspiring. I haven't even met her in person yet, but I love her already.

So why did I start this project? Why do I do this work?

I think it might be for 3 reasons. Friendship. Beauty. And Experience.

I can't summarize my first 3 days with words. Which ones would I choose? But I will try to find words another time. For now, some images:








12/13/12

How to Participate Remotely

Guests of Miko Kuro's Midnight Tea receive a personalized role and assignment created by their [g]hostess, Miko Kuro, to help guide them through the art ritual.
For the Midnight Tea in Mumbai, people may choose to participate as Guests, Red Chorus members, and Remote Participants. Only invited members of the press and invited friends and family of the Guests, Featured Artists, and Midnight Team will be allowed to observe this event on-site. Others wishing to follow along with the proceedings can do so by following along on the MKMT Facebook Page.  
LIKE US now for updates on how to see images and streaming video during the 12-hr event.


 Below are the options available for Remote Participants, or people who would like to be involved somehow but can not physically be present in Mumbai during the event.

Options for Participation
(Non-Guest Instructions)

Miko Kuro’s Midnight Tea is a participatory event. Should you feel compelled, you are encouraged to do any or all of the following to participate in the Midnight Tea.
  • You may also complete the following “Red Lineage”—an international, multidisciplinary project by Miko Kuro’s Midnight Tea founder, Natasha Marin. You can POST in the Community Page or submit it here
 Your Red Lineage will be incorporated into the Mumbai ritual along with excerpts from contributor's "My Midnight Tea Ritual" videos.

My name is __________________________________________________Red. (e.g. “Owl beak breaks open”)
My mother’s name is __________________________________________Red. (e.g. “Not even”)
My father’s name is ___________________________________________Red.

I come from a people known for ________________& ___________________.



Remember me.

12/7/12

T MINUS ONE WEEK

A week from today, I will be headed to Vancouver with my family and my buddy Zac B, where we will fly to Mumbai, India for a wee adventure!

Why India?

India, specifically Mumbai, is where my friends, Shree Joglekar and Jui Mhatre went to art school. The idea for this project was collaboratively engineered by four very different minds. My partner, Kelly, and I were hosting Jui and Shree for the weekend, as they were the Featured Artists at “The Time Tea” which took place in Vancouver on October 31, 2009. We found ourselves discussing how we could use the extra hour during the upcoming Midnight Tea event (it was the night the clocks turn back an hour), and we ended up talking about how time is experienced in India. We imagined together that a tea in Mumbai would have to be an exponential version of the current project—12 hours in duration with 12 artists to work alongside participating guests to create a one-of-a-kind art ritual.

And so now it's happening.

I'm really lucky to be working with some incredible people in Mumbai who have been instrumental in getting the project to where it is:

Namrata Bhawnani (Visual Disobedience) is awesome-- professional, communicative, and supremely connected in Mumbai. She's an ex-journalist with ties to artists of all kinds, from animators to dancers and musicians. She's the real thing! Read more about her here.  
 Shelly Jyoti is a poet, artist, fashion designer, mother, and maker of beautiful things! We both are connected to Seattle's amazing ArtXchange Gallery in historic Pioneer Square. Shelly's work on the indigo farmers in rural India opened up many interesting discussions about legacy and aesthetics. Visit her website.

Snigdha Binjola is a tea sommelier, whose company TeaTrunk.com combines with skillfully crafted blends of carefully selected teas with the ambiance created by narrative and storytelling. In Mumbai, she will be serving tea during the Water Cycle at the Tao Art Gallery.

Arshiya Lokhandwala, the director of the Lakeeren Gallery, creates space for innovative concepts-- providing a much-needed impetus for showcasing new, avant-garde contemporary art in India

To find out more about the Midnight Tea in Mumbai, visit us on Facebook, or online at www.mikokuro.com. All guests must RSVP to attend.

11/30/12

Metrics for Success

My friend and entrepreneur, Nina Carduner, held my hand as I created this set of metrics for success with the Midnight in Mumbai project:

Criteria for Success:
(if the world were perfect)

1 . Documentation - Successful harvesting of video, sound, photos, testimonials, evidence of what happens during the 12-hr event.  Scale: 6

2. Media Coverage - Any kind of coverage will be welcome.  Scale: unknown

3. Professional Experience - Interaction with galleries and artists. Scale: 10  

4. Collaboration & Compromise - Natasha is unruffled by inevitable snafus. Harmonizing intention despite differing viewpoints, perspectives and areas of expertise during the 12 hr tea. This is largely dependent on self-care. Which means: Getting rest, food, sleep, tai chi, and meditation.  Scale: 7 

5. Safety - Nobody gets hurt, hospitalized, or arrested. Scale: unknown 

6. Future Opportunities - Reasons to return to India, including meeting artists and potential future collaborators. Scale: 8 

7. Creative Engagement - So far, this work as been very admin-heavy, as such some more emphasis on creative engagement would be welcome from here on out.  This is also an internal issue. Scale: 6

8. Beach Time & Relaxation - Go to a beach, relax, smoke, laugh with James Cagney and play spades with Zac, etc.  Scale: 5    

9. Genuine Encounter & Learning - The internal grace and willingness to grow and exceed one's prior self. Evolution.  Scale: 8

RSVP for Midnight in Mumbai here.
My friend and advocate, Sakara Remmu, helped me make a list of excuses that I might tell myself that would keep me from success. Together we developed a daily mantra for success:

It's not too hard. I can do this.
Time is a figment of my imagination.
I have as much time as I think I have and plenty of energy.
I will prioritize self-care so my energy does not get depleted.
The unknown excites me.
I want this opportunity to validate myself and others.
I am ready for a new landscape, new perspectives, and new friendships.

11/2/12

Kickstarter - Midnight in Mumbai

Having no experience with fundraising, I embarked upon a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for my latest project. We raised $2,700 on Kickstarter which will go towards helping Christopher Shaw and Rachael Ferguson (2 phenomenal Seattle artists) buy their tickets to Mumbai.

THANK YOU!
I am really, truly, deeply grateful to our 63 backers for making this happen:


Alice Marshall
Alicia Bowman
Amber Kruel
Amie Colonna Gillingham
Amy Jean Swanson
Angel Stewart
Anne Liu Kellor
Barbie-Danielle DeCarlo
Bonnie Brooks
Brent Amaker
Brigid Ferkett
C Davida Ingram
Casey Jones
Cora Edmonds
Corey Paganucci
Cristina Orbe
David H. Adler
Edward Bennett
Ellen McGrath Smith
Eman Hassan
Emily Price
Erika Peterson
Felicia Hayes
Ian Obermuller
Jaime Lemonberry-Farkleface Mcclung
James Cagney
Jaye Marin Skinner
Jenny Asarnow
Jessie Caryl
Jim Demetre
Karen James
Karen Toering
Karen Tsang
Kat Morris
Kate Weale
Kelly O'Brien
Ken Shook
Laila Suidan
Laura Lucas
Lauren Davis
Leilani Lewis
Lisa Marie Rollins
Lisa Pollman
Lydia Swartz
Matt Daly
Mike Soriano
Natalie Diaz
Nicole Bearden
Nikki Turner
Nina Carduner
Ramata Diebate
Renee Marin
Sakara Remmu
Sarah Levine
Shannon Stull
Sharan Strange
Stacey Bennetts
Stephanie Pruitt Gaines
Timothy Lennon
Tommye Blount
Van Diep
Virginia Wright
Yonnas T Getahun


After Amazon.com and Kickstarter's fees (!!!) we should have about $2300 to put towards those efforts. Below is the more sobering reality check-- getting to India is a bit pricey. Additional donations will be gladly accepted via the event website

REAL EXPENSES:
$1500 - Venue Fees (damage deposit, cleaning fees)
$4,400* – Roundtrip Airfare for 2 Featured Artists
$2,200* - Roundtrip Airfare for 1 Childcare Assistant
$1000 - Production Design (Set elements, Lighting, and Sound)
$500 - Marketing and Public Relations
$400 Translation and Transportation Assistance in Mumbai


TOTAL: $10,000

*Average RT flight to Mumbai from Seattle (December): $2200 per person

Please help us to spread the word by telling your friends. If you have ideas and/or suggestions about what we can do better, let us know. Yes, we want to connect with you through art, creativity and TEA! Just email mikokuro@gmail.com and visit www.mikokuro.com for more more more.

10/23/12

Spotlight on Stafanya Talenti


Stafanya Talenti has been a member of the Midnight Team since 2009 when teas were held monthly at 45WEST STUDIOS in Vancouver, Canada.

While editing the Midnight in Mumbai video, she created a series of vignettes that feature moments from past gatherings. See more of her work.

Here's one from the archives ...
Audio: Mugoux Varra