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The Journey Project

Double-helix inspired, interactive experience, using mortise and tenon, interlocking construction.

Fractured Atlas cannot currently accept donations for The Journey Project because their fiscal sponsorship is inactive or expired. Please contact The Journey Project with any questions.

The Journey Home

The Journey will take you places you have never been. Come alive in an ultra-sensory experience through music, lighting, design, and responsive technology. Create a personal or community experience.

 Black Rock City, NV, US
  • $8,476 raised of $15,000 goal
  • 78 donations
  • -3887119 minutes left
This is a Fiscally-Sponsored Project

Fiscally Sponsored by Fractured Atlas

What is your Journey?


A simple question asked of participants at SN RG, the Southern Nevada Regional Gathering. Shot and edited by Rand Larson a mash up inspired by The Journey. A truly inspiring and thought provoking introspective of individual's life journey's. Enjoy the share.

Dan Reeves & Dan Sullivan, Catacomb of Veils


Dan Reeves, lead artist The Journey, and Dan Sullivan, Catacomb of Veils, sat down at All Of Us Event last May to talk about large scale art Burning Man and being queer artists. Check out their experience...

Reflections of The Journeymen at All of Us


The Journeymen are interviewed about their involvement on the project and their perspective of how it changes their lives and those around them. This honest out in the field interview series crew members giving it their all one evening at All of Us, the only Queer Burner focused event which is held in Northern California, will leave you falling in love with the project if you haven't done so already. Find out why civic engagement and your support is so vitally important to the overall success of this project and to our crew. No stone goes left unturned. 

And you will want to stay tuned for the post credit out takes for a special feature where film editor, Rand Larson, pokes fun at project manager Lee Hemingway, who takes it in stride.

A special thank you to Scott Kay, the entire volunteer staff, and attendees at All of Us who made this event so memorable and life altering for each of us who attended.

The Journey @ Saguaro Man with Burners Without Borders and The Expression Station


The Journey braved rain, hail, snow and sunburns to bring 1/3 of the overall structure to Saguaro Man, Arizona's Regional Burn. We had a great time sharing our prime location with Burners Without Borders, and The Expression Station. Making new friends and fans out in the Arizona high desert. We will be back - regionals are the future of Burning Man and we believe it! Thanks for having us. 
 
The Journey is a walkable, climbable, interactive sculpture five years in the making, an idea born of a 2012 Playa experience and conceived three years later in artist Dan Reeves’ living room. Presented as an expression of the chromosomal double helix that is part of all life, this project comes alive as an ultra-sensory sculpture that encourages contemplation, interface, relationship, and wonder. Through sound, lighting, design, and responsive technology, participants can work individually or in collaboration to alter the immediate experience, within and around the installation.
 
Ancient Knowledge + Modern Technology = Radical Ritual
 
The Journey is formed by 36 interconnected, spiraling revolutions. The interlocking wood structure’s joints are mortise and tenon, an ancient technique dating back thousands of years, before the Bronze and Iron Ages. Each ring is 10 ft. in diameter, creating an 8 ft. interior walkable corridor cloistering an inner courtyard.
 
The installation’s footprint is 42 ft. in diameter, comprised of over 3500 CNC-routed pieces. Each day during the Burn, The Journey will feature color palettes and sounds corresponding to a different chakra, starting with the root on Monday and ascending to the crown on Sunday. Just as the chakras are believed to channel certain energies in our bodies, so too will they guide the spirit of The Journey.
 
A progression of sounds and tones (such as sunrise meditations that will tune the sculpture to that day’s chakra, or sunset gongs and chants) will ground and focus participants as they reflect on their own journey. The lighting system will respond subtly to the sounds of the day, but a more obvious response blooms at night, elevating interaction with The Journey to a more intense and immersive experience.
 
Reflexive and Dynamic
 
Created to be temporally and environmentally aware, the sculpture can be appreciated from varying distances. This series of passive and active, reflexive and dynamic expressions aims nurture both solitary introspection as well as communal observation. The torus shape is an eternal path that can be experienced externally and internally, but there is no designated entrance or exit: you must discover your own way to climb in and through.
 
The inner courtyard offers chances to evolve the experience: the space houses interactive panels. One can work individually or collectively toward a desired outcome, or cede control to others, mirroring the ways we can function physically and spiritually.
 
There is a plan of ritualistic growth in the variations of sounds, colors, and reactivity that The Journey will display throughout the week. Visitors will uncover increasingly complex interactions by returning again and again.
 
An Armature for Self-Expression
 
Artist Dan Reeves tackles the common social/political issues of community engagement, connectedness and sustainability with his work. Dan has noticed a lack of large-scale community art in San Diego, and even where it exists, it’s usually static and not meant to be approached. His education in sculpture informs his unique perception of art as a foundation, a scaffolding for encouraging makers to construct a higher meaning. The Journey invites interaction, play, and even healing, for both the anticipated participants and the community of artists, coders, builders, and engineers that have jumped on board to manifest the project.
 
Full STEAM Ahead
 
Contrary to popular belief, The Journey will not be set aflame at Burning Man. There is an afterlife in sight. The project, by nature, is highly versatile; each installation creates its own unique character based on site logistics and needs. No two appearances have featured the same configuration of rings. The structure is under proposal to appear at YOUtopia, Southern California’s regional burn, in October: the plan is to present it as a temple, in partnership with an artist from New Zealand. After that is Catharsis on the Mall in Washington D.C.
If there is ever an end to the project, its constituent parts will be put to re-use. The wood (PureBond Baltic Birch) will be mulched. The electronics will be donated to STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics) programs in local schools, to nurture the next generation of makers and artists.
 
We Can’t Do It Without Your Donations!
 
Large-scale, ambitious projects produce diverse and unexpected costs, and The Journey is no exception. Besides the considerable cost of build materials – wood, tools, lighting and electronics – The Journey faces other dire financial needs such as transportation costs associated with lugging the project across inhospitable deserts and kitchen set-up and foodstuffs to nourish a hungry, hundred-strong volunteer crew.
 
The Burn is approaching fast and we cannot bring this amazing project to fruition without you! Donate today – not tomorrow or next week – TODAY!

The Journey is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non­profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of The Journey must be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only. Any contribution above the value of the goods and services received by the donor is tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Rewards

Featured

Tee + Card

Donate $100.00 or more

Amount over $20.00 is tax-deductible.

Hand Screened The Journey Tee Shirt screened by artist Dan Reeves himself and signed along with a limited edition playa postcard experience.
22 / 30 claimed

Playa Postcard Experience

Donate $25.00 or more

Amount over $3.00 is tax-deductible.

Every person who contributes to The Journey at the $25 level will get a hand-written postcard from the playa of The Journey. The postcard will be an original Rand Larson photograph signed by the photographer and artist, Dan Reeves.
12 claimed

Cap + Card

Donate $50.00 or more

Amount over $15.00 is tax-deductible.

Get the Playa Postcard Experience and a limited edition logo embroidered baseball cap. This is the same cap provided to CORE Journey and Build Team members.
7 / 15 claimed

Make It URself

Donate $250.00 or more

Amount over $40.00 is tax-deductible.

The Journey Model Building block set to build several revolutions yourself or create your own unique creation.
2 / 5 claimed

Chromogenic Photogenic

Donate $500.00 or more

Amount over $50.00 is tax-deductible.

Limited Edition Signed Print - Receive a limited edition signed photograph of The Journey from Burning Man 2017. Photographer Rand Larson.
3 / 5 claimed

The High Life

Donate $1,000.00 or more

Amount over $125.00 is tax-deductible.

Enjoy a four course meal on The Playa complete with wine served for two. You & your guest will be able to customize silkscreen an item of clothing w/The Journey branded screens. Receive a postcard of The Journey photo by Rand Larson.
0 / 3 claimed

Big Shot - Garden Sculpture Ring

Donate $2,500.00 or more

Amount over $150.00 is tax-deductible.

Have a 3' replica of a single revolution of The Journey created for your home or garden.
0 / 3 claimed

Life Saver - Full Sized Lite Ring

Donate $5,000.00 or more

Amount over $450.00 is tax-deductible.

Have a full-sized ring of The Journey for your outdoor installation complete with lights. Also add your name to a revolution of The Journey sculpture on the playa.
0 claimed