The theme of this year’s Fringe Festival revolves around “Happy.” How do we perceive and cherish moments of happiness in our lives today? What defines happiness in the Nation’s Capital? Is Washington, DC truly a happy city? What happens to our brains when we are happy verses when we are sad or experiencing grief? To explore these questions, we’ve issued an open call for images capturing happiness experienced in DC during May. These snapshots are juxtaposed with archival images sourced from the Library of Congress. The culmination of this project is a rotating display of photographs on a series of TVs installed in the windows of 1150 Connecticut Ave NW (Box Office for the Festival) from June 20 to July 21, running for 24 hours each day. “Happy” is conceived and art directed by Julianne Brienza in collaboration with BellVisuals, Exactly Agency, and Aton Crawley.
Additionally, with the support of the Georgetown BID, Fringe will project images of happiness onto the facade of the former Georgetown Theatre, now Compass Coffee, at 1351 Wisconsin Avenue on NEW DATE!!! Thursday, July 18th. The projection will be hosted from across the street outside of M.M.LaFleur, located at 1344 Wisconsin Ave NW. The Fringe Happy Pop-up event will commence at 6pm with “happy” music, and the projection will run from 8:45pm to 10:30pm.
Please do share your photos of happiness in DC via Instagram and use the hashtag #happydcfringe and tag @capitalfringe. Your photo may appear as part of our projections and presentation. Most importantly, take time to get happy. Do what makes you feel positive, whatever that may be. Be kind and forthright with yourself and others. Surround yourself with positive people! We all have one life the most important thing we can all do is spread happiness.
Photos of Happiness: Albert Ting, Nan Raphael, Emma Hooks, Rebecca A Herron, Archit Mehta, Cliff Djajapranata, Nicole Burton, Michael Robbins, Nathan Krieg, Susan Hormuth, Lisa Gilbert, Alec Berry, Jon Gann, Ken Ku, Aubri O’Connor, Anna Kompanek, Yuqian Zhang, DeVante Capers, Helene Horowitz, Matt O’Herron, Dan Bozzuto, Derrick Thomas, Daniel Bozzuto, Ronald Thomas, Marcus Gerome, Kokayi Walker, Katelyn King, Archival Photos Library of Congress: Harris & Ewing Photographs, Highsmith Archive, National Photo Company, Robert McNeil Collection and US Farm Security Administration