EDIT 1/20 -- Thanks to everyone that submitted their name for this call for art! We'll be announcing / sending emails to all participating artists shortly! :)

THE LOST ISLE OF KISMET
A Choose Your Own Adventure Exhibition
Opening Fall 2017
Light Grey Art Lab
118 E. 26th Street #101
Minneapolis MN 55406 • 612.239.2047

Your knife feels nearly useless as you hack through the thick brush in front of you. The sun is quickly setting and although you enjoy a glimpse of the brilliant colors through small holes in the canopy now and again, you know that within the hour you’ll be lost, hungry, and left to ponder your state in complete darkness. With a grunt, you swing your knife again at the thick vines and rip a handful to the side, then beckon your two traveling companions to step through. Your legs ache from walking uphill for hours and any sliver of exposed skin is raw and roasted from the mid-day sun. Up in the trees, you can see the silhouettes of bats sweeping between the mossy treetops. You’re jealous. You raise your knife once more but stop suddenly. There, in front of you is an old rope ladder covered in moss and frayed from age. It extends upward to an old and crumbling footbridge in the treetops. You study it for a moment-- It looks like a path through the canopy...

Your traveling companion, Bill, looks at you with sad eyes. “You know I can’t get up there.”

You feign a smile. “Sure you can…” You give the ladder a small tug to test its strength. An unexpected shower of bugs rains down on the three of you, most of which land on Bill. You watch him hurriedly brush himself off, and can't help to glance down to his leg. He’s right. He can't make it up the ladder, and you all know it. His leg is bloated and a rainbow of colors. The ladder looks like it could only support one person at a time, and it would likely take two of you to help Bill up into the treetops.

Leave Bill behind and tell him you’ll come back for him. You know it’s not likely you could find your way back if you tried, but at least two of you might have a chance to escape the thick brush before night time. (Turn to page 24)
Try to take Bill with you and see if you can assist him up the ladder. (Turn to page 112)

We are looking for artists interested in building a world full of wonder, intrigue, peril, and adventure for our huge Fall 2017 exhibition! We’ll be transforming the gallery into an interactive choose your own adventure-- where visitors will be able to wander through the gallery, traveling from page to page and determining the fate of your party as you go. In coordination with the exhibition, and for those adventurers that can't make it to Minneapolis, we'll be printing an exhibition book, allowing for anyone to wander The Lost Isle of Kismet from the comfort of their own home.

If you've never heard of a CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE -- it's a book with multiple endings, various paths, and choices the reader can make as they go. Each encounter gives the reader a chance to flip to another section of the book and discover how their choices have determined the fate of their hero and their party.

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HOW IT'LL WORK:
We are looking to build four 'teams' -- each in charge of one of the categories of encounters on The Lost Isle of Kismet! One group will create the spaces, another the treasures and artifacts, a third the creatures, and finally, one group will depict the disasters the party may encounter. Each participating artist will be assigned a team (based on their preferences below) and make one piece of work within their team category. All artists on each team will be able to bounce ideas off of their teammates, see what others are building for their facets of the adventure, and contribute their own epic encounter!

The teams are put together based on interest and category -- so for example, there will be parts of the journey where our heroes will discover mazes of caves underground, or stumble into a pit of spikes, or a heaving ball of spiders. Whatever you decide, we'll encounter it in the adventure. Below are the categories of encounters we're looking for and a couple words to help you get the idea of what types of things fall into that category --

TEAM DISCOVERY (open vistas, maps, environments, shelters, dwellings, plants)

TEAM TREASURE (treasures, ruins, long lost artifacts, people they meet along the way, clues, talismans and items, equipment)

TEAM CREATURE (animals, monsters, ghosts, demons, transformations, beasts, swarms, bones of things long dead)

TEAM DISASTER (poisonous things, illnesses, traps, natural disasters, explosions, all encounters with terrible things)

Each artist can make one piece of work that will be exhibited in the gallery, archived online, and printed in the interactive exhibition book. The work will be for sale in the gallery and online. Since this exhibition is going to be really unique and interactive, we will be asking for digital files ONLY for the exhibition and will be printing the gallery print for all artists for free to make it easier to participate! The exhibition will be a massive installation, and to help us raise funds for the installation of the event, we'll be printing a limited edition of the choose your own adventure books that will be available at the opening reception and online when the exhibition opens.

The Light Grey Team will be writing a fully interactive story with many twists and turns of fate, disasters, perilous circumstances, and heart-pumping adventure once the artwork comes in, and will return with a multi-faceted story with different endings, journeys, and paths you can continue to read and explore many times over.

TO PARTICIPATE:
If you're interested in being a part of the adventure, please put your NAME, EMAIL, LINKS TO YOUR WORK ONLINE, and YOUR 2 TEAM PREFERENCES BELOW like this:

Lindsay Nohl
hello@lightgreyartlab.com
lindsaynohl.com
1. TEAM DISCOVERY
2. TEAM DISASTER

Then, we'll be reaching out after the call for art ends (a few days after January 20th) to email all participating artists with more information on selling their work, dates and deadlines, artwork submission info, and everything else one might need to know about the show! The final list of participating artists will also be announced via our blog and social media the following weekend!

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DATES TO KEEP IN MIND:
EDIT 11/16: We just found out that we'll be able to do something incredible for both the show and the book (SORRY, NO SPOILERS!) and we've adjusted the deadlines for the show accordingly! We're excited that gives all of us a little more time to make it through the holiday season and start the New Year off with a bang!

FINAL ARTWORK will be due MARCH 1st, 2017.

Thanks so much and please let us know if you have any questions!
You can send us a note anytime at hello@lightgreyartlab.com

Here's to an epic adventure!