Edie Reaney Chunn and Melanie Evelyn

After reading the “Uninvited” text, we became interested in the idea of the invitation. Reflecting on our childhood and adolescent experiences of parties and invitations, we devised a symposium-sleepover-happening that would facilitate further reflection on the themes of love and polyvocality found inside the text. The name Hidden Mountain was chosen for our event after a childhood game where friends would hide in sleeping bags guessing who was inside each, sifting through shared and blurred boundaries of the self. Hidden Mountain took place in our own home, and inside of the Night Box (if you’ve ever shared a secret in a dark room, or sat in an audience with the house lights out and wondered “Will this play ever begin?”, then you know what the Night Box is — you’ve been there before). We began to conceptualize a space where (by invitation only!) loved ones would become guests who would partake in a night of activities, rites, and rituals wherein we would continue the conversations about love. Some of these activities included weaving, reading, letter-writing, show-and-tell style discussion, and a toast. The aim of Hidden Mountain was to consider the confusing, rewarding, painful, and life-changing experience of love, and all the ways love appears in our lives. That is, we think, more or less what happened — but we invite you now to listen, look, and read through the documents assembled here to find out for yourself.

Hidden Mountain, November 19, 2021