Behold The Ocean

Dear supporters,

here are a few words – and some important information at the end.

Thanks to you, Behold The Ocean will become real. The last few days have been emotional and tense. When I refreshed the browser on Sunday night, we had made it – and I couldn’t believe it. I have been planning this project since November 2019. I couldn’t be more grateful for the dozens of rejections I received from foundations and grant givers since then – because now I know that there are 119 individual people who will actually care about the work, and who I can share the experiences with, and who will hold thoughtfully created outcomes in their hands in a couple of months. I already look forward to the exchange we’ll have, and to the challenges I’ll share with you. One of my main objectives with this project, particularly in the context of a crowdfunding campaign and my soon to be re-activated YouTube channel, is to not merely demonstrate how the project evolves, but to encourage other freelance artists and photographers to engage in similar endeavours. Many of us self-employed creatives dream of being published in major outlets like National Geographics and getting meaningful assignments. But unless we get really, really lucky – we need to invest in personal projects ourselves as a foundation to build on first, which is hard work. I look forward to giving my best, to taking you with me on this journey and to finally being able to carry out a project of this scope in the environmental genre. The expedition and my take-off to Chile are planned to be in October. The fundings from wemakeit will reach me in around two weeks, which will also be the time that I’ll know more about my departure. As soon as I have my tickets, we’ll plant the trees. The Ocean Letters will start to reach you around mid September after the fundings arrived – I’ll send them via Mailchimp, and sometimes these emails end up in the spam or promotion folder, best would be to add me to your contacts in your email accounts: ava@akosuaviktoria.com For now, I decided to take a little break. While I am grateful and motivated by the fact that we made it, I want to take some time to re-focus and re-charge my mental energy levels – because the actual work now is in front of me.

I want to deeply thank you with all that I have. You cannot imagine how moved I am by all of your support throughout the past weeks. Every contribution matters to me.

See you in the Ocean Letters.

Akosua

Dear supporters,

some of you have already seen that the end date for the campaign is now the 31st of August.

This change is an absolute exception to the rule, linked to a variety of challenging circumstances this year has brought upon us.

Having now reached almost 50% of the target thanks to you, we have over two more weeks to make it, and I’m optimistic that we will get to 100%.

Over the weekend I will still be working on communicating with potential ocean ambassadors/institutions, but they usually take a little more time to respond and make decisions. I also added new rewards, one being an informal studio visit and another one being the choice between one of my available large format originals.

Enjoy a peaceful weekend – from Norway and Canada to Tasmania, Ireland, Germany and Switzerland, Italy, and all the other places you are from.

Dear Behold The Ocean supporters,

thank you for your incredible support. The campaign started moving forward again in the last two days and while I’m still nervous, I’m more positive-nervous instead of anxious-nervous now.

There are now 10 more days left for us to make Behold The Ocean come to life, and 1+1 could equal 100 here. How so?

Imagine each and every one of you could find one single person to talk to about this project, in person, on the phone, or via email – then we could be a crowd of more than 100 individuals soon.

I’ve talked to José, the marine biologist from Chile who leads the expedition, and we will postpone the trip to October which leaves us more time to prepare – and it will give me the opportunity to make a diving course in order to create analog underwater photography – just found the perfect camera for that matter.

Two weeks ago, I got really lucky to have an amazing exchange with a Zurich based organization that specializes in climate science communication and I can highly recommend you to visit their website www.climanosco.org and dive into their blog and library.

Weekends tend to be less dynamic in terms of campaign movement, so I will invest the entire Friday and next week into finding one or ideally two Ocean Ambassadors – individuals, philanthropists or organizations that will support the campaign with a larger amount in exchange for an extensive public presentation of the project. If anyone of you happens to have an idea who that could be, please let me know. In the meantime, I keep typing and handwriting away to potential ones.

Take care and you’ll hear from me soon, Akosua

Dear supporters,

a few days ago we’ve reached 1/4 of the target – thanks to you.

And today we are officially two weeks into the campaign. I’m continuing to be sending out individual messages to people and relevant organizations and am optimistic that we will soon pick up the momentum we had in the beginning.

Plateaus provide a long view, geographically and metaphorically: the stagnancy of the past three days has emphasized how important this project is to me, for so many different reasons.

But apart from the visible plateau, things are still moving in the background: last week, we have received the confirmation from a foundation that will support Behold The Ocean with an additional 1000.- Euros, so technically we have passed the 30% mark. And on Friday, I had the opportunity to talk to an incredible person from an organization that aligns with Behold The Ocean so serendipitously much – and I look forward to telling you about an emerging collaboration soon.

There have been changes made to a couple of the rewards today – I’ve added a darkroom print + dark chlorophyll postcard package reward and removed the limitations from some other rewards because technically it isn’t possible to pay limited rewards via traditional bank transfer. So I hope to now be including more people to our growing community.

Speaking of community: We are a truly diverse group, and I want to thank you for that. From my beloved mother and my dearest friends, former teachers and beautiful humans I met only once on a dog walk with Mingus, to incredibly supportive people from Canada (hope to meet you guys someday in person) and other countries. Thank you for being here! And let’s keep moving forward.

Take care and talk soon, Akosua

PS: if you have questions, ideas for special rewards or relevant contacts who can help us make this project reality, let me know, I’m here!

EN below –––

Ab heute gibt es zwei neue Rewards: einen handgefertigten Dunkelkammerabzug und ein Sonder-Exemplar von Pululahua – Cloud of Water, einer Schwarz-Weiß-Fotopublikation über meine Zeit als Pferde-Tourguide in einem ecuadorianischen Vulkankrater.

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Today I added two new rewards: a handmade darkroom print and a special edition copy of Pululahua – Cloud of Water, a black and white photo zine about my time as an equestrian tour guide in an Ecuadorian volcano crater.

– EN below –

Lieber Unterstützende,

danke, dass ihr uns in dieser kurzen Zeit auf 11% der Zielsumme gebracht habt. Das ist meine erste Crowdfunding-Kampagne und ich hoffe, dass wir es schaffen – die Seelöwen warten (behaupte ich). Gebt doch euren Freunden Bescheid, dass dieses Projekt existiert – denn vielleicht haben sie auch Lust, es zu unterstützen und sicher vertrauen sie euch. Ziel ist es, bis Ende nächster Woche auf mindestens 25% der Zielsumme zu kommen, da eine Kampagne statistisch gesehen dann am erfolgsversprechendsten ist. Aktuell arbeite ich an Kommunikation und zusätzlichen Belohnungen. Ihr hört in ein paar Tagen wieder von mir.

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Dear supporters,

thank you for bringing us to 11% of the target amount in this short time. This is my first crowdfunding campaign and I hope we can do it - the sea lions are waiting (at least that’s what I tell myself). Let your friends know that this project exists – because they might also feel like supporting it and they will surely trust you. The goal is to reach at least 25% of the target amount by the end of next week since a campaign is statistically the most promising when it does. I’m currently working on communication and additional rewards. You’ll hear from me in a few days.