The River

One year since Haus Anima’s inception at ReMergence 2022 we returned with new costumes, more music, and bigger art for our newest experience The River.

Planning started on The River four months ago when we sketched an initial vision on a whiteboard in our living room. For the past four months we’ve been working on The River, making art themed around reflection and water to fill a liminal space. This is a digital journey through the process and art we created.

As we refined our vision of The River we grew attached to a long list of art pieces we wanted fill the space. In the end we painted, sculpted, and build seventeen original art pieces:

Charon & Offering Box
Flutterfish Waterfall (reused from Wintertide Festival of Lights)
Plant Wall & Stalactites & Pink Mushrooms
Untitled Boards & The Unnamed
Lilypads
HexaTunnel
A Window is an Eye is a Mirror
Geode
Infinity Eye
Riverstones
AnglerFish
Web of Reflection
Tide Pools
Googly Eye Eye
River Styx.mp3

Filled with art and mirrors, The River itself is a tranquil environment for reflection: a liminal space between one world and the next.

The River’s physical construction consists of our trusty 10x20 carport, 14 black curtains, 40 feet of chiffon cloth, 50+ paper fish, 4 black lights, and dozens of yards of paracord to hold it together.

At the entrance to The River we positioned Charon above an offering box that announced:

TO CROSS THE RIVER STYX
YOU MUST PAY A TOLL
IT'S NOT A HEAVY PRICE.
JUST A SMALL SACRIFICE —
A TRINKET, A TOY, A MEMORY OF JOY
IF YOU'D LIKE TO CROSS ON CHARON'S BOW
IT MUST BE SOMETHING YOU HOLD NOW

We seeded our offering box with a few trinkets, some origami, and a few memories of our own. By the end of the night we had received a hundred notes and dozens of small offerings including stickers, candy, a water bottle, and a stuffed gnome.

To the left of Charon The River unfolded. As guests stepped through the first curtain they were greeted by a long black corridor illuminated by UV and rippling white light.

On the right, Kalesta’s Flutterfish, originally created for Wintertide Festival of Lights, rose in a waterfall of fabric and light. On the left, a wall of plants grew alongside mirrored mushrooms and unworldly stalactites.

Loren and Kalesta constructed the Mushrooms & Stalactites by painting with The Blackest Black then doing a second pass with Pinkest Pink. Finally, they glued hundreds of tiny individual disco mirrors to each piece.

Continuing down the wall were two of Loren’s original acrylic paintings, A Window is an Eye is a Mirror and LilyPads. A Window is an Eye is a Mirror is a Window is An Eye is scrawled in green paint and resembles an eye, it gives the first of many opportunities to observe your reflections or catch a glimpse of the other side.

Hanging from the curtain were many small black panels covered in geometric mirror designs.

Part of Haus Anima’s core tenet is reveling in the process of making art with other people. In February we hosted an mirror art party and invited our Burner friends to come help us make art to be displayed in The River. The result was UNTITLED BOARDS and THE UNNAMED. Their nearby placards announced:

UNTITLED BOARDS
What we brought along we leave:
Our passion, joy, time, and dreams.
The river takes us and we sigh.
Tiny paradise at last.

THE UNNAME
Created by travelers as they recounted their lives.
They ask that you linger on each one delicately, as a
frog would hop from stone to stone— careful not to
dip its toes in the water of the souls.

Next in the River was Geode. Repurposed from a large plastic salad bowl, Loren and Kalesta covered the inside with foam clay and many tiny concave mirrors. Moving your face close to the bowl reveals various fractured close-up reflections.

In The River a middle curtains separating one pathway from the next. The kaleidoscopic Hexatunnel peeks through, pointed at the UV reactive painting Riverstones. Zhigalka and Loren created Hexatunnel from laser-cut chip board, mirrors, 3D-printed supports, and spray paint. Looking through it to the glowing Riverstones on the other side was a surreal experience.

Moving forward through the River took visitors through hanging strips of reflective mylar. Surrounded by reflection, visitors next encountered Infinity Eye. Kalesta built this infinity mirror in the shape of an eye by painting a thrifted mirror for the base, adding LEDs, and topping it with a circular two-way mirror complete with pupil.

Kalesta created Tide Pools only a few days before ReIgnition. She surrounded three mirrors with pearlescent clay and iridescent cellophane. At ReIgnition, one of the pools was covered in slime allowing guests a unique tactile experience.

Part of Loren’s costume for ReIgnition included a large angler fish mask. Loren built the base for the mask out of tape, aluminum wire, and foam clay before spray painting it and adding details like scales, fins, and UV-reactive teeth. The eyes were holiday ornaments donated by a friendly neighbor. While not on Loren’s head at the event, Angler Fish hung from a hook next to a placard reading: “If you don’t see me here… look for me on the other side.”

The last piece of the River was Googly Eye Eye. Zhigalka built Googly Eye Eye using an upcycled bicycle wheel mounted onto a 2x4 so that it could spin freely in either direction. They covered the wheel in black poster board and a mylar cutout in the shape of an eye. Then they added dozens of googly eyes in various sizes. When the wheel spins, the googly eyes move in silly directions. We delighted in watching many people playing with this piece, giggling as the wheel spun and the eyes moved.