Bending Horizons

Bending Horizons is a multi-project-based initiative by award-winning Artist Dr. Sarah Jane Pell. The mission is to engage and inspire an interdisciplinary view of human exploration with extreme art adventures. Each project will be crowd-funded and available online for the widest interactivity. The first project aims is to create site-specific artistic responses on route to the summit of Mt. Everest, logging data and recording the explorers-view of the expedition with a 360degree HD camera. The team will arrive in Kathmandu by 2 April 2015, summit and return safety by 3 June 2015. Just six months after the biggest fatal avalanche on the mountains history, Pell hopes to show the power of art to heal and reignite desires for exploration. The climbing team includes Dr. Sarah Jane Pell supported by five-time Everest summiteer Satyabarata Dam in a private expedition with Sherpa Nim Dorjee and Sherpa Mingma to the summit. They are accompanied by a research and documentary party to Everest Base Camp. A Board of Advisors acts as a remote 'mission control' and constant inspiration. The expedition will result in: Novel systems for communication and media during human exploration. Insights into the human experience of extreme performance at altitude. Post-production hybrid interactive documentary, exhibition and eBook. This will be the first 360degree HD documentary based on an artists-eye view to the summit, the second Artist to Summit Mt. Everest & contribute new art from the heights, and the eleventh Australian Woman to Summit Mt. Everest. Bending Horizons is one step in a broader campaign from sea, to summit, to space 2015-2017. Step by step, the plan is to design a creative form of civilian space pre qualification by 2017 through extreme art adventure, crowd funding and broad engagement with the public.