Guest blogger Teresa LeYung Ryan, Author of Love Made of Heart

Teresa LeYung Ryan asked me to paint her story from her memoir/novel Love Made of Heart in a bookcase for her a few years ago. I did, so when I made my film Art and Gift, a voyage begins, I included her story and her photo in front of her bookcase, as well as her words regarding her request in the film, about giving away my art.  I asked her what she thought of the film, and she answered with a poem and a blog entry, presented here:

January 1, 2012

Chandra Garsson asked me today: “Teresa, what did you really think about my film?”

As I was telling her, she said “Could you say it in your blog?”

So, here goes… It took Chandra 9 months to create her documentary Art & Gift 2011.  9 months of work–being the film’s protagonist, camera person, director, producer, editor. What impressed me the most about this film is seeing Chandra’s generous nature on the big screen.  She could have been the sole narrator, presenting the conflict.  But, she did so much more.  She interviewed over a dozen fellow artists and writers to give us a chance to express ourselves.  She presents a story with fairness.  She listens to the other side; she even gives the other side the spotlight so that we can hear/see the other side without any filters. In the case of her film, the other side was the landlord.

During our conversation today, we talked about theme.  I was telling Chandra about just having finished editing a children’s novel and helping my client identify the themes in her story.  Chandra said  there is theme in her work too.  Yes, in deed.

The first time I experienced her art was when the fabulous Kim McMillon orchestrated authors’ readings during the5-week long exhibition of  Chandra’s Insomnia [Awakening] at Pro Arts in Oakland. I still remember what poet Mark G said about Chandra’s big pieces (Chandra had painted stories on doors).  “She understands trauma. I’m a vet.” That’s my recollection of what Mark said that day.

The plastic baby dolls in Chandra’s exhibit hooked my attention.  She understands broken child-within, I thought.

We’ve been friends since.

Please take a look at Chandra’s  film Art & Gift 2011!  I’m proud of my friend and her powerful work. I’m honored to be in the documentary with Lucille Lang Day, Mary Rudge, Pedro, and all the other artists/poets/musicians/writers who were invited to speak to Chandra Garsson’s camera.

December 24, 2011

My praise on Chandra Garsson’s latest film Art & Gift 2011

birds’ songs

dog’s barking

haunting music

You understand sorrow.

eviction.  Your losing your work space–to paint, to create, to sculpt, to work

from 2,400 square feet of artist’s space to 400

Your Insomnia [Awakening]

trusting Chandra Garsson to paint my dolls my ego my childhood symbolism onto Love Made of Heartbookcase

Your growth, blossoming, working with your hands, with colors, sounds, shapes.

Your masterpieces:  art-making; book-making; jewelry-making; film-making

Sincerely,

Teresa LeYung-Ryan, author of Love Made of Heart

Chandra Garsson says of her film:  “Documents the gift of a lifetime of art-making after eviction from art studio. Interviews with recipients of art, including landlord. My goal was to save art from the dump, and I succeeded.

        I am laughing in joy, Teresa, to read your praise. Thank you! Yes, it is true, after you presented me with the poem you had written in your blog about Art and Gift, I did suggest a more conventional essay approach to blogging. The poem sparked genuine interest in finding out what you were actually saying about my film, hence my suggestion of a more formal approach.

     I present here an introductory six-minute short film by way of paratext, or as I say within the film ‘paratextural’ information on the film, a play on ‘paratextual’ emphasising the textural qualities of the surfaces of most of my art: Paul Digby on Art and Gift, a Voyage Begins

      Believe it or not, I dove back in to create a second version very similar yet different from the feature experimental documentary Art and Gift, this called Art and Gift, a Voyage Begins: Art and Gift, a Voyage Begins

       And believe it or not I am still far from satisfied, as there are some technical flaws resulting from sound problems that could not be avoided, given my lack of experience making films, given the film software I worked with, given compression inevitable in the upload. Still and all, I am satisfied. I documented the gift of nearly all my art work, and I was able to realize my goal, that of saving my work from ultimate destruction brought on by the vagaries of the state of commercial real estate in the state of California, and eviction. Frankly, I was done, I wanted freedom from what had become for me an ongoing untenable situation.

Photos show bookcase Teresa commissioned me to paint her story on. Photo of me taking photo taken by Teresa.

Art and Gift Part Three, Part two, A Voyage Begins

     I wrote last about the publication of my latest film in the making, Art and Gift. I remade that, and the result is somewhat different in sound, some added clips and images, more than that, the overall feel is in another realm not quite altogether, but there you simply must have it. My hope is that you will watch the new version, Art and Gift, A Voyage Begins, and that you might let me know what your thoughts are, either here or where it is posted.

    The third and final film in a trilogy telling of the gift of all my artwork to those who valued the work, thereby rescuing the art from landfill following one eviction too many from art studios, due to owner's plans for development of the property. After my eviction by a  landlord from the Dutch Boy paint factory art studios, I was given a much smaller space by my friend of twenty years, a friend who had collected much of my art. In order to make that move to a much smaller studio, I had to sell a great deal of my work at prices far below market value at the time of that move, which was almost six years ago. The space my friend offered me she offered at a price well below market value. Now ensconced in the old Bank of America building, my friend sadly died. Her son inherited, he "had other plans for the building," so once again I had to move. He kept the rent the same low amount I had paid his mother until the time of my move. He offered me another space in another building about 1/4 the size of the smaller space I had squeezed into after eviction from the Dutch Boy. With enough space for my work, the rent would have gone sky high, well beyond what I could have paid. Just finding space large enough would have been a dicey situation, one that I had explored to no avail, especially given that neither commercial nor residential rents have come down in my area, despite the near depression economy.
It is difficult to say in a situation like mine whether the tragedy is the loss of studio/gallery/work/storage (all of that is what a studio is or can be to a visual artist), or whether the tragedy is the necessity of saving work from land-fill by giving it to others. It is both. The loss is of countless hours of grueling intellectual and physical work that goes into the making of any art---in my case countless paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and the objects that go into the personal collection of an artist, all grist for the mill, all muse, all props that hold the theater together.

Paul Digby, Vincent Andelmoth, Aki Sasaki and friends, and Danny Zingarelli and friends created hauntingly beautiful music which graciously they allowed me to use in my film.

The poetry of Lucille Lang Day rings true and clear throughout the film.

Poet Mary Rudge speaks eloquently at film's end of changes and passages, "Every time a person dies, a book is lost."

I gave it all up for free!

Note: There are at least two places in this film where the sound got away from me in transit (upload)---my great desire is that these two places will be heard as very avante guarde sound sculpture.

A Nine-Month Project, Newly Released: Art and Gift

I have been working on this film the past nine months, complete and uploaded to Youtube. I invite you to click on the link and watch this film complete with interviews of those I gave my art to, and my landlord who evicted me.  The film can be seen at this link:  ***Art and Gift,***  a film by Chandra Garsson, featuring art by Chandra Garsson.

Featuring Poetry by Lucille Lang Day, music by Paul Digby (music), Vincent Andelmoth, (music, inCissorS), Aki Sasaki, (music,Escape (Window), Slave Unit), Egmont van Dyck, Jan Steckel,  Teresa LeYung Ryan,  many more:  ***Art and Gift***

Bryan MacCarter Has Died, My Friend on Facebook

       'I'm writing to let you all know that our friend Bryan MacCarter died.

I thought you would want to know. I went to his friends page to see who were mutual friends.

I went to his page to check on him because it had been a few weeks since I heard from him, and found that he died at the end of October of a long time illness. That is all I know, You can go to his page and glean what you can, if you wish.

It is a very sad thing to me.

I am sorry if I shock you with this, I did not know he was ill, maybe no one did.'

                 This I wrote on a note at facebook to let mutual friends know of death. Then I wrote at the note:

Bryan MacCarter

Art by Bryan MacCarter

 'Some time back, Lana, I saw a very kind note from you to him at one of his photos that I could not comment on because it was so painful, I'm sorry to say. But thinking of that made me want to tell you and mutual friends.'

      At a post of Lana Gentry's I first became significantly aware of both her and Bryan MacCarter.

      To Lana Gentry from me on Facebook:

      Thank you for your note at the top and re-post of this photo and thread. In my sadness about Bryan's death which I only found out about yesterday, I have among other things been trying to remember when and why I first became friends with him. I believe this, maybe my first conversation with you, and must be where I first met Bryan.

       August 23, 2010. Seems I knew you both longer. But that is the nature of facebook, sometimes. Sometimes you have a friend for much longer, before you become aware of their art, for example. Sometimes you are aware and have given recognition and support for the art long before you have a real conversation. I 'member this well, I remember clicking 'like' on nearly every comment at your thread, and connecting on a conversational level with you for the first time. I believe Bryan may have begun to really connect with me, and I with him, at this very thread. Again, thank you. I am so sad.

       

      Later, when I gave away my art, Bryan asked me for the piece in the photo at this entry. I said no, the piece is very delicate, he on the other side of a continent from me, I knew it would be damaged in the mail.

I now of course regret that I did not find some way to wrap it so carefully that it would have survived the journey. It hurts inside that he wanted it, that he was dying of a terminal illness, that I did not know that, that as far as I know, no one knew that Bryan was dying. To know that he could have been looking at it while he was so ill, that he asked me for it and I said no, hurts my heart. What hurts my heart even more is 
that I did not comment at his photo. I did, I do, and I should have known better, given the nature of the image.

       The above drawing, Lana Gentry made of me, posted on facebook. It includes the piece I now call 'Bryan MacCarter,' and is now an altar to him. I will think of him every time I look at it, and because he was one of the most understanding, supportive, kind, intelligent people I have ever met anywhere---I will revisit him at this altar, often.
       I wish that I had known of Bryan's illness. I understand that he felt he needed to face his death in his own way. We all make these choices for ourselves. I just wish that people would not feel the need to hide the facts, or hide from the facts. When even the most difficult of all problems are brought out into the open, there is at least potential to deal with them, maybe even with friends.


To me when I gave away my art: 
"Chandra, I have postage covered, plus, dear. Is the skull on the hand pedestal still available? I'm in Richmond, Va. Don't tell me if you don't feel like it, but what's wrong? I can arrange shipping, poste haste, if you'd like. And I will repost this, but if you have that work, and you really want to keep them in the public trust, i'll take them and pay you for your trouble. I hope you're ok. Oui, non?"
And then: "So, eating it's own, if you still have it, i'd love to have it. We just need to figure our shipping and other various jazz... : )"
Finally in regard to art piece: "If you send me the message, i'll repost it, i can't find it on your webpage, buuuut, if you're being evicted (?) you should charge for your lovely paintings, and such, , you might make a mint. : ) And i'll buy the original work i mentioned, so holler..."
OHhhhhh, my heart, I swear I never saw those last two, I actually thought he had dropped the ball to some degree, OH GOD, the technical vicissitudes...


In his own words about himself:

 "My uncle was a bank robber, and he was one of the funniest, smartest guys that I knew when I was a kid. My mom's dad ran shine back in the day using trucks from his Ford dealership, and my pop's dad had speakeasies throughout the city during prohibition. heh Me, I just paint, write, and jabber about philosophy. I went to jail once, for being drunk in public, and I hated it. I like to be able to walk to the store, or the river, as I please. Plus, daughter, dog, elderly mother. They would be screwed." 


      A strange thing, the death of a friend. I have been crying over my facebook friend Bryan for two days. The thing is this: What would he think? I mean, we weren't that close, it's facebook. But I think Bryan wouldn't mind. He 'like'd me, at least in part, because I am emotional. That's why we were friends.

Pink Flamingos, and Sympathy For Those Who Do Not Always Have Sympathy

      
       You know, I have some experience. To all former wealthy who can no longer make a living, and to people of all ages pushed out of the job market. I feel for you, to be sure, who doesn't? It was the case all along and still is the case that for 99% of artists, facts of education, talent, ability, work ethic, productivity, real can-do attitude and willingness to do it all...counted for virtually nothing in U.S. middle American culture; they also did not count in the exploitative art world. Most of us were far from appreciated all along, let alone honored or allowed to earn a living. Always generous, I have this to say to the unemployed and those employed beneath their level: yes, it hurts to feel you are a tree falling in the forest with no one there to hear. My heart goes out to you, just wait it out, keep going, you never know. Survive.

      Along the road to destruction, how many jewels have been thrown by the wayside, how much cultural wealth, our national treasure, has been allowed to slip through the cracks? People will not pay for fine art, but millions of dollars have been thrown away on pink flamingos for the garden. The question remains, what did most waste their money on then, and what is money wasted on now?

       I was taught in grad school that our reputation was everything, we could easily be blacklisted, be careful. But the level of repression of every genuine human instinct and thought that this engendered was phenomenal. In the long run all the walking on eggshells has done artists little good. Maybe it is time for a paradigm shift? Easy for me to say, I recently gave away a lifetime of art work, which did incidentally free me up to say what I please, no small matter at all.

The Great Giveaway, Part Three--- Just what are we giving away? On art, nuclear fallout, and our planet

I dread the visions I have of the future, especially if we let right-wingers hold sway...do they want to see us dyeing in the streets of painful disease, young and old, together with children,decrepit, sick, homeless, those who are still able predatorily taking advantage, while the rich who have taken all for themselves die in underground bunkers clutching the money they saved from closing down mental hospitals, health care, jails, police, fire departments??? After they did this nuclear deed to all of humanity, all other life on Earth? This is what I fear, it's been going in this direction far too long. If we shut down our willingness to engage about it, we cannot plan for a better future---and we must. We must begin now to plan compassionately for the massive die-off. And we must plan for knowledge of finding a way to end the nuclear nightmare, so that it is not ongoing for the next million years, with or without us. I don't think most people even realize that nuclear fission means never-ending.

      What goes through my mind about this beautiful planet, her waters, her air, her bodily self is so complex I barely know where to begin. I find myself in the old existential dilemma---whether it's better to face what feels horrific about our world, and all the most difficult feelings attending, or whether to do as I do in most of my life, and find a way to remove myself from the angst of our human condition---I mean the ones that we have created as humans---the nuclear nightmare, and the global warming conditions that threaten the existence of all we hold dear on Planet Earth, Earth herself. My feeling is that if we continue as a species to ignore, we are doomed.


      Now that we have opened Pandora's box and faced the worst consequences of meddling with nature, essentially playing God, we have a responsibility to make certain Earth does not "throw us off" as one put it to me lately in her explanation of how she sees recent nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima, Global warming events as Earth's revenge for our poisoning of her, her waters, her air. She said "if Earth wants to throw us off her, she will, and Earth will be fine without us." Would that it were that simple! Think of the result of Chernobyl's continuous nuclear fission under the sarcophagus there, and the 15 years overdue new covering over the old one. The billions it will cost to build it are not nearly paid, it will be as high as the Eiffel Tower, 500 (?) yards long circumference, and will last 100 years. Thud. 


      In geological time it is barely the blink of an eye. If we do not continue as a species, how do we maintain Chernobyl and the rest of the nuclear power plants around the world? All of life on planet Earth is at stake. To all of you who love life, animals, water, air, Earth, I ask you if you believe there is a way for a critical mass of humanity to get to the point of expanding beyond merely maintaining the tiny status quo of our little lives and find a way toward apology and care for our Mother Earth, at (long overdue) last?


      To be alive is to think. Most in our culture repress thought too much, and untold damage results. Yet, we can not help but think, even if it is "...McDonalds...gambling..heroin...shopping...who can I hurt...air freshener...TV..." all manner of trivial drivel that might hold it all together somehow, for a while, but keeps individuals and everyone else in perpetual ignorance...when we could have been so much more! By using our brains for more than just survival, by embracing art (and the love of it), love for writing, reading, true philosophical thought, how to make the world a better place, how to treat children, how best to feed our bodies, get out of addictive cycles, affect politics toward the betterment of all of society, the environment, away from all the selfishness, the greed, the infantile need for leaders, even bad ones...if only we could have used our minds to lift ourselves up and out of the mess we're in...maybe we never would have been in this mess to begin with. Ever since we got Fooked, I cannot be other than real, as real as I can be...I'm so outraged by the fact that it finally happened, and once again the world shuts down thought, stands by, lets it happen. Better to my way of thinking, we would think and discuss our way to solution, or at least psychological grappling with it... The Joseph Campbells and the Buddhists are all well and good, I suppose, but what about you and me and the rest of us?

     
     Gandhi said anger is energy. If nothing is done with it it can kill. If it is used for the good of all, to the very best of one's individual and collective ability, there is no end to the good it can do, for self and world.

     First comes horror, fear. Then comes the anger as a defense against the terror, and galvanizing of the human spirit to do do one's best to rectify if at all possible. And if this intense need to create solutions goes unsatisfied, well then when the time to die comes, one goes out knowing that as much as possible to fix was carried out by the individual, possibly there is personal peace in that. I have not given up all hope.

       Another thought: I think that given the state of this world, no wonder people can't easily tune in to one another. Maybe it is understandable given all the problems, and given that this does indeed look hopeless. I would say that probably there is no hope, but I am one that needs to feel that there is, in order to keep on going as long as I can. Part of the hope I need to have is that somehow less damage can be done, some can survive, someone can fix it, somehow. I see how ridiculous that looks, given what we know, or probably know, but I am probably one who would have gone to my death in the concentration camps believing all the while it wasn't going to happen. This terror that they unleash on us from the inception of the insanity of nuclear knowledge, as surely as whatever was done to us by violating parents, societal violence, war, illness makes many of us to some degree crazy, including the craziness that has kept people in ignorance and denial of it all from 1942 on.

 

Tree Spirit, owned by Meena Antonia Miller
The Animals, owned by Aki Sasaki
Out of the Depths, owned by Aki Sasaki
Hand Book on the Out of Hand (Pandora's Box), owned by Terrry R. Flowers
Sink or Swim, owned by David Stuart Rose
Gandhi, owned by Rahela Ranjbin


Yes----failure of imagination, that is exactly the trouble: http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6404

Unspeakable reality voiced on Australian 60 Minutes, CBS:
http://www.worldwidehippies.com/2011/08/18/fukushima-now-radiating-everyone-unspeakable-reality/


Jellyfish may be to the rescue: http://hken.ibtimes.com/articles/177027/20110709/millions-jellyfish-invade-nuclear-reactors-japan-israel-2011-power-plant-shut-down-unusual-growth-tr.htm

Sunflowers, too: http://www.care2.com/causes/sunflowers-may-heal-fukushimas-radioactive-soil.html

From Dr. Helen Caldecott on radioactivity in the U.S. following Fukushima:http://www.nuclearfreeplanet.org/news/2011/07/12/radiation-levels-in-northwest-rain-were-up-to-130-times-drinking-water-standards-following-fukushima-japan-nuclear-reactor-explosions.html

And in the United States: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/27/nuclear-flood-nebraska-fire-us_n_885534.html

Recently uncovered and written about by Annie Jacobson in her book about Area 51, called Area 51: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-05-13/americas-secret-nuclear-test-revealed-in-area-51-by-annie-jacobsen/4/

Grab a cup of coffee or tea, sit back comfortably for about an hour and listen to the voice of reason, Dr. Helen Caldicott:
http://worldstreams.org/past141.html


An excellent organization, on facebook, too: http://www.beyondnuclear.org/home/2011/6/1/check-out-and-download-our-new-ad.html

Worse than a meltdown at three reactors from The Guardian:http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/08/fukushima-nuclear-plant-melt-through?cat=world&type=article

A good compilation on the latest news out of Japan: http://www.infiniteunknown.net/2011/05/12/japanese-officials-admit-for-the-first-time-nuclear-meltdown-at-fukushima-plant/


A warning to stay out of the rain, good links at this blog, and some interesting discussion: http://stokereport.com/rant/radioactive-rain-california

About your milk and fish: http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/radiation-in-milk

The Nuclear Engineering site from U.C. Berkeley provides some interestin discussion indeed: "The one thing I do know is that the EPA has been less than truthful (I'm being kind), concerning information on their website. They've removed and changed information and ignored important facts that should have been posted. And along with that, I don't need some happy, little colorful map. I learned to read when I was four. All I want is the truthful findings from their tests and some unbiased background information pertaining to those tests. I'm not a moron or a child that needs government lackeys to draw pictures for me and tell me everything is going to be ok."
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/2347


Setback at Fukushima: http://www.euronews.net/newswires/921253-japan-readies-new-tactics-for-fukushima-after-setback/?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4dd00a1934f450df%2C0

Architectural plans for new "safe" sarcophagas at Chernobyl: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvEDVuGOJ6Y
Protest of NRC: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/apr/28/anti-nuclear-protest-planned-at-nrc-meeting/ 


Burning radioactive waste debris for fuel in Japan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVKHCK0DvnI
A man living in Tokyo who wants the truth and tells us we should want the same: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pHwvRWw7kY&feature=related

Yuko Noguchi on NPR about Japanese people burning debris from Tsunami with unknown asbestos and radioactivity: http://www.ideastations.org/npr/135770675-one-big-obstacle-to-japans-recovery-trash

"One of the most monstrous medical cover-ups in history" Helen Caldecott, M.D.
http: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ITrXVJMKeQ&feature=related gundersen

Arnie Gundersen on NPR Democracy Now with Amy Goodman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5mxi1HJP7Q&feature=related

"Bury it!" from Michio Kaku: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DkCD5IInMY&feature=related

An interesting spiritual perspective/meditation on denial and compassion from Portland, Oregon:
http://www.gaiaworkshops.net/fukishima-fallout-and-the-spiritual-challenge-of-nuclear-disaster/

Great radio programming around this and all environmental issues: http://www.tucradio.org/

Very good article by excellent journalist, Alexander Cockburn on California nuclear dangers from plants: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/76471,news-comment,news-politics,alexander-cockburn-another-fukushima-in-america-not-if-but-when

The Great Giveaway, Part Two

Chandra, here the entire poem is. 
 Did you see "The Queen Of The Sun?"

Last night, as I was sleeping

by Antonio Machado (1875 - 1939) Timeline English version byRobert Bly Original LanguageSpanish

Secular or Eclectic 20th Century

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt -- marvelous error!—
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?

     Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt -- marvelous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

     Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt -- marvelous error!—
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.

     Last night, as I slept,
I dreamt -- marvelous error!—
that it was God I had
here inside my heart.

                                                   -an email from my friend Lemora Martin

                                                   -artwork, For Van Eyck,  owned by Lana J. Rose

The Great Giveaway, Part One

         How to commemorate the Great Giveaway of nearly all of a lifetime of art? Especially as the huge physical push on the parts of myself and others that it entailed coincided with the Great Earthquake and Tsunami of Japan? That soon after beginning to realize what was happening there, one of the Great Nuclear Disasters in human history was taking place for the people of Japan? For the world?
          I felt guilty continuing to process all that I had been put through, all I was putting myself, friends, acquaintances through. For me this past eviction from my art studio and all I did to save my work from the dump will always be somehow preempted in my mind by tragedy on a scale of which my relatively small drama pales in comparison. It is just as when Pedro's and my exhibition at Deeproots, the reception of which was in the very week I realized that the studio I had occupied for the past twenty years would have to be vacated by Pedro and me despite more than five years fighting my landlord there, coincided with the breaching of the seawall that was Hurricane Katrina. How to properly address one's own personal tragedy in the face of catastrophic disaster affecting entire regions, an entire country, the world?
         I don't know, I suppose it's something to do with the famous selfishness by necessity of the artist.
         I blog, I have begun to work on a documentary film about this eviction, and the imperative of the art I had to give away, the imperative of the giving away of the art.

Painting, The Beating Heart of the Butterfly, owned by Lana Jean Rose

Having Been in a Garden of Sorts all This Time

                 I find myself cast out.  I think that after this eviction and the giving away of the artwork of my entire life as an artist, not only will I survive, but I will Feel a great liberation.
        

                I wonder how Adam and Eve felt to leave The Garden of Eden and to discover a whole world beyond the only world they had believed they would ever inhabit.