Help Mel Head North!

Greetings All!

My name is mel gayle monoceros and I am so thrilled to share that I, along with 8 other filmmakers and artists from around the world have been selected to attend The Weight of Mountains residency taking place January to April 2018 on the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation or Dawson City, Yukon. 

Who am I?

I am a Black-Taino/Arawak, disabled and chronically ill artist, an afrofuturist, an abolitionist, an ancestral and cosmic communicator, and a believer in nonlinear time. I am a queer agender animal lover and introvert witch-in-training. I am a poet.

Through poetry, filmmaking, and textiles I create work that speaks to the myriad of ways and forms of survival, particularly of Black, Indigenous, people of colour; sick, Mad, Deaf, blind, and disabled folk conjure over time and circumstance. 

check melanniemonoceros.com for more

What is TWOM?

The Weight of Mountains is a biennial filmmakers platform, residency, and collective. Every two years a curated selection of visionaries venture to remote, overwhelmingly present, or peripheral locations worldwide.

Filmmakers work with their own individual ideas as conduits and conjurors that respond to evocative notions of site-specifics. Artistically, we explore location, landscape as character, the intersection of humanity and environment, or the reciprocal notion of psychogeography –an ongoing rhetorical investigation into the metaphoric weight of mountains. To varying degrees, filmmakers work with communities, locals, lore, subtleties, and stories inherent to both their own practice and the specific regions they are immersed into. 
Over January 10th – April 4th [2018] The Weight of Mountains will be held in Dawson City, Yukon Territory, Canada. This is in winter with low temperatures reaching -40 degrees [Celsius].

check out twom.is for more
. . .

The double Scorpio, deeply Plutonian alien loner in me is so deliciously thrilled to find my creative self within that kind of darkness and silence.

The spoonie  part of me is like - sorry, wait - what are we doing?

So to make help my complex being have what it needs to survive those particular arctic elements, there are some amenities, tools, and resources I need to gather.

Where you come in:

I am reaching out to you dears, friends, family, peers, colleagues, and beyond to request your support in helping me partake in this dreamiest opportunity.

I write this as someone who has had to reach out for support to finance their artistic and spiritual goals before. I am able to dream of this next growth in my life and career in large part due to those immensely influential and galvanizing experiences - experiences that could not have happened without the generosity and support of you, dear friends and strangers!

. . .

Not being able to work a conventional full or part-time job means that I live on fixed (grossly under adequate) disability income, supplemented by teaching, facilitation, performing, and exhibitions.

The last year has had some acute health issues and episodes requiring full time management and as such I have been less able to supplement my income in the ways I normally would.

I am grateful to share that I did receive a scholarship through the residency toward accommodations and residency fees.

Your Donation Will Go Towards:

-       my plane fare

-       food and basic daily needs for three months (including uninsured medication and specialty food supplies like gluten and dairy free, etc.)

-       kitty care in my absence

-       super duper winter supplies (heating blankets, SAD lamp, long johns, snow pants, etc.)

-       filmmaking supplies (16mm supplies from eBay and other sources)

-       a new sturdier cane, equipped for the elements

-       shipping of any materials, tools, equipment to Dawson and back (to cut down on luggage weight)

-       potential purchase of a mobility scooter (if needed) in Yukon and shipping it back to Ontario afterwards

As someone living with multiple and variable limitations, taking on the challenge of a big trip like this is as scary as it is exciting.

Though I relish the time I will get to spend away from the crush of the city, it also means being farther away from many of the human, material, medical, emotional resources I engage with as part of my survival.

Your support means that you believe in my tortoise-style of getting things done and means that I can continue to create and dream without such high cost to my health and wellbeing.

Each donation helps narrow the gap between what I will need to thrive and what is available so far from home.

It means a lot to me that there are others who believe in what I dream of being and creating in this world. <3

Perks:

thank you snail mail from Dawson

tagged/thanked on my social media (if that is your thing)

signed prints from “tuning the ocean”
(estimated delivery: December 2017 - May 2018)
(donations of $20)

1st copies of Point of Origin installation chapbooks
personally autographed
(Estimated Delivery: December 2017-May 2018)
(donations of $50)

*knowing that you are helping make magic happen.*

. . .
 
Thank you so much for reading, sharing, and donating if you can. Please follow this page for updates.

 

xom

 

 
Other ways to support mel on their journey:

Paypal - paypal.me/patchworkpoet

Amazon Wishlist or gift cards - http://a.co/9ScdgZv

help mel pack and prep (local folks) <3