Find Your Focus Crowdfunding Campaign
Thanks to your support, we exceeded our crowdfunding goal!
Our Find Your Focus campaign to expand the Shrine Room was a success, and your generous support helped us reach our goal. Any additional contributions will continue to support all activities related to the new Shrine Room, including care and maintenance of the art objects.
We are relocating and expanding one of the Museum’s most beloved installations: the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room. In its new home in the exhibition Sacred Spaces, the Shrine Room will nearly double in size to create a contemplative, more inclusive environment with ample seating.
Visitors will step inside and feel surrounded by scroll paintings, sculptures, flickering butter lamps, the scent of incense, and the sound of Buddhist chanting, all to help them imagine the experience of standing inside the shrine room of a traditional Himalayan home.
A new, moveable glass wall will allow the entire floor to become an extension of the installation. With the gallery wide open, we can host musicians or a conversation series in the Shrine Room, activating the space in surprising ways.
“I love to stop in and sit by the Shrine Room, even if it's just for fifteen minutes.”
As anyone who has visited the Rubin Museum can tell you, the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room is immersive, it’s informative, and it allows visitors to experience objects from the Museum's collection of Himalayan art in their cultural context. But right now it can’t fit more than a few people at once. Thanks to feedback we’ve received from so many of our visitors, we’ve decided it’s time to give our beloved installation a bigger, more accessible home.
This October the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room will provide a more inclusive, contemplative environment when it is moved to the upcoming exhibition Sacred Spaces. Visitors will step inside to be surrounded by scroll paintings (thangkas) and sculptures of buddhas, bodhisattvas, and other deities arranged on Tibetan furniture. Flickering butter lamps and the sound of Buddhist chanting will fill the room to heighten the senses. Offering bowls, vajras and bells, handheld drums, prayer beads, conch trumpets, and horns will re-create the experience of a traditional shrine room of the type seen across the Himalayas. There will also be new seating to allow visitors to spend time in the space and fully experience the art.
The fourth floor is waiting—now we need your support.
The plans are set and the designs have been finalized, but in order for the work to begin, we are counting on you. All of you. We’ve designed the new Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room to be more accessible for our visitors, and together we can make it possible. With your support through our crowdfunding campaign, we will be able to construct an entirely new lighting system to give the Shrine Room its ambience along with new cabinets and beams to create the ceilings and pillars. Your support will also help us preserve and transport ancient works of art to build the new shrine room and make it an unforgettable space.
As thanks for your participation in the “Find Your Focus” campaign, donors will be listed on a digital scroll in the gallery as well as on the Rubin Museum website. To express our gratitude for your generosity, contributors will be invited to attend an opening reception for the Shrine Room and those contributing $500 or more will be invited to attend a VIP viewing.
For more information about this project or to learn more ways to support this campaign, please contact Skylar Failla at shrineroom@rubinmuseum.org.
About Razoo
The Rubin Museum is using Razoo, a third-party online advocacy and fundraising application, to raise funds for expanding the Shrine Room. Please be advised that Razoo’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy apply to your use of this service. Any data that the Rubin Museum collects is subject to our Privacy Statement.
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CAMPAIGN DETAILS
Launch Date: September 1, 2015
End Date: October 23, 2015
Goal: $45,000
