Now open — until Jan­u­ary 7th!

Major Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio spon­sor and sup­port­er Sean­chai Library is pleased to announce the open­ing of The Dick­ens Project 2023 Edi­tion.

This Sec­ond Life win­ter hol­i­day tra­di­tion invites guests to walk in the steps of Ebenez­er Scrooge in an envi­ron­ment inspired by Charles Dick­ens’ 1843 novel­la “A Christ­mas Car­ol.” An invit­ed com­mu­ni­ty of Sec­ond Life res­i­dents, groups, and orga­ni­za­tions will present a vari­ety of music events, per­for­mances, tours, and sto­ry presentations.

Oth­er fea­tures include skat­ing, sled­ding, a bal­loon ride, a horse cart tour, plen­ty of pho­to oppor­tu­ni­ties, and sev­er­al new fea­tures this year. The Dick­ens Project regions opened on Thurs­day, Decem­ber 7th, and close at the end of the day on Sun­day, Jan­u­ary 7th.

Vis­it the Project now, at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Dickens%20Project/129/128/1401

“This project has a lot of his­to­ry and long time fans have a lot of own­er­ship over ele­ments that are favorites. If we decid­ed not to have Bay Rum Roy­al and the horse cart tour, there would be a riot!” said Cale­do­nia Sky­tow­er of Sean­chai Library. “We try to bal­ance retain­ing things that are famil­iar with explor­ing new ideas and new ways to improve the expe­ri­ence for our guests.” Sean­chai Library has pre­sent­ed Dick­ens’ work through­out its 15 years in Sec­ond Life, with the seeds of what is cur­rent­ly known as “the project” start­ing in 2012.

Inspired by the enthu­si­as­tic recep­tion of “Where’s Mr. Lurky?” at this fall’s Brad­bury Project, a search-and-count style hunt will be one of the addi­tions to this year’s activ­i­ties. Guests will be invit­ed to “Help Tiny Tim!” who has left his crutch some­where, every­where across the two Dick­ens regions. Infor­ma­tion on “Help Tiny Tim!” will be avail­able at the Wel­come area.

“Even though we’ve worked with this his­tor­i­cal peri­od for quite a while, we still make dis­cov­er­ies regard­ing Vic­to­ri­an cul­ture that intrigue us,” Sky­tow­er com­ment­ed. Such a dis­cov­ery has led to anoth­er new fea­ture this year: mer­maids. The mer­maid has been depict­ed in many ways through­out his­to­ry, from lithe beau­ti­ful maid­ens to grotesque fish hybrids. The sto­ries and the art that tell the tale of this fas­ci­nat­ing crea­ture are parts of a wild­ly var­ied col­lage. The Dick­ens Project offers a dis­play of some of these fas­ci­nat­ing pieces of art and sto­ry in the Light­house on Dick­ens Har­bour, curat­ed by Dag­mar Kohime.

Return­ing after sev­er­al years is the Dick­ens Open Art Show. Sec­ond Life artists and pho­tog­ra­phers are invit­ed and encour­aged to dis­play their work inspired by The Dick­ens Project, Vic­to­ri­an Christ­mas, or Win­ter Beau­ty. Infor­ma­tion on the Call to Artists can be found on the Sean­chai Library web­site in a ded­i­cat­ed page, or at the Dick­ens Project Wel­come Area. The dead­line for sub­mis­sions is Decem­ber 17, and inquires should be direct­ed to Ste­vie Basevi.

“A whole com­mu­ni­ty has grown around this event,” said Sky­tow­er, “I start get­ting mes­sages in August ‘will there be Dick­ens this year?’” The Dick­ens Project pro­motes com­mu­ni­ty – with indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions com­ing togeth­er to per­form and present for the annu­al cel­e­bra­tion. Orga­ni­za­tions and per­form­ing groups include Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio, Inns­mouth in SL, Evo­lu­tion Dance, Idle Rogue Pro­duc­tions, Mis­fit Dance and Per­for­mance Art SL, and Vir­tu­oso Dance, eClipse Club & Resort, and the SL Hawks Aer­o­bat­ic Team. New this year will be the Angeli­cus Boy Choir, with a sin­gle per­for­mance on Decem­ber 30th. The Com­mu­ni­ty Vir­tu­al Library will again pro­vide research and infor­ma­tion on Vic­to­ri­an life in the time of Dick­ens’ works. Numer­ous DJs and Live Musi­cians will be per­form­ing dur­ing the month-long festivities.

These are all in addi­tion to the live sto­ry read­ing pro­grams which Sean­chai Library is known for. The pop­u­lar “Car­ol Week” will begin with The Big Read on Sun­day, Decem­ber 17th at Noon. The relay-style pre­sen­ta­tion involves a cho­rus of voic­es in a con­tin­u­ous read­ing of “A Christ­mas Car­ol” from the begin­ning to end. The week will con­tin­ue Decem­ber 18 – 21st with a sec­tion of Dick­ens’ novel­la pre­sent­ed live each day in a “Sto­ry Tour” pre­sen­ta­tion to the sites on the estate inspired by the sto­ry. A lis­ten­ing room is avail­able 24/7 where guests can lis­ten to dif­fer­ent record­ings of “A Christ­mas Car­ol” on the media stream. A sim­ple hud is avail­able for res­i­dents who would like to explore lis­ten­ing to the sto­ry stream, rather than the music stream.

The Dick­ens Project was cre­at­ed for Sean­chai Library by Da5id Abbot, Dag­mar Kohime, Glo­ri­ana Maertens, Ste­vie Base­vi-Morane, Iniry Vaher, and Cale­do­nia Skytower.

Sean­chai Library is grate­ful to Lin­den Labs and Patch Lin­den, our 2023 Region Sponsors.

The Dick­ens Project uses sev­er­al expe­ri­ence-based sys­tems includ­ing Cale­don­ian Stu­dios, Quan­tum Prod­ucts, and Meta­Harpers Inter­ac­tive The­ater for tele­por­ta­tion and to enhance guests interaction.

Spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion and sched­ule details for The Dick­ens Project are avail­able in Sec­ond Life and through the Sean­chai Library web­site. All tips from events will be donat­ed to Read­ing is Fun­da­men­tal. (Note: Sean­chai Library is not an offi­cial rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Read­ing is Fun­da­men­tal). The event sched­ule is also avail­able in the Wel­come Area and in the Dick­ens Project Calendar