Let me stop you right here.
I’ve left things a bit vague and mysterious about the project in terms of documentation on purpose, so that people can enjoy a bit of surprise. As the saying goes: expectations are premeditated disappointments.
So, feel free to back up and quit reading the rest of this page.
But, I ALSO know some folks don’t want to walk into things blindly, so I’ll give you a bit on my perspective - which I hope will serve as a satisfying substitution for actual details.
Here goes…
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Mark Krawczuk creates events and installations that dismantle the distinction between spectator and spectacle. He produces interactive installations and performances that convey the emotional reality of a communal, illicit activity in a way that binds the audience and the event together. Shared discovery, tension, and spontaneous action help participants enter alternative cognitive and emotional frameworks of social interaction.
Themes such as collaboration versus competition, trust versus risk, respect and hospitality, and cultivation versus control emerge from a meticulous scaffolding of cascading events.
The heart of this practice is the act of planning, a manifestation of “possibility space” which provides a blueprint for performative recreation.
This current work: “The Journey to the Nebula by Cualquier Tours - a Subsidiary of the Werewolf Union LOCAL #667” is a continuation of the exploration of the concepts behind the Lost Horizon Night Market. It explores source creative platforms where artists create interactive installations and performances, establishing a scaffolding for autonomous creative activity, interactive imagination, and joy.
But while LHNM used rental box trucks to create one-off liminal spaces that would last for a single evening and then sublimate into the ether, this project’s aim is different. It seeks to create more durable experiences while also navigating the fierce financial real-estate realities of urban centers by asking the question: what would art space in storage units look like?
Krawczuk first considered this after his drive from San Francisco to New York in early 2020 during the height of the pandemic. Moving back to New York City and traveling across the country in a Toyota Tacoma with all of his possessions, he found a storage unit with 24 hour, 7 day a week access for under $200 a month. When all of his belongings were safely stashed away, he realized: this is an accessible spot for installation!
Over the pandemic, the idea grew, informed by the social realities of the pandemic: people socialized in “pods” - leading to the idea of creating an experience for two people, with a run time of about the same time frame equivalent to a play or a movie.
The idea of creating a control room for a spacecraft intrigued Krawczuk: its dimensions could fit into a storage space, and the idea of a “road trip” in space for two people also resonated.
Krawczuk considers this to be a “delight room” - a play on the concept of an “escape room”. But instead of the escape’s room series of challenges, problems and escalation to escape and win, a delight room invites the user to somaticlly reset in an engaging and explorable ambient environment, to experience a sense of calm, contentment and wonder, and to simply delight in being there.
By embedding a meditative environment in a realm informed by science fiction and fantasy, Krawczuk subverts the typical trappings of a mediation space into an environment that feels more approachable to those who feel typical meditation spaces are not for them. (While all may not feel comfortable in a shrine, most everyone feels invited into a Star Trek or Star Wars-style world.)
Channeling post-war artists like Pier Paolo Calzolari and Jannis Kounellis, part of the Arte Povera movement, who used everyday materials to create anti-elitist art (see Hyperbeast’s Guggenheim Spotlights Diverse Works Made With Found Objects), Krawczuk continued to inspired by the proliferation piles of cardboard from Amazon and other shippers. Having focused on cardboard in an earlier piece (Cardboard Animal Parade), Krawczuk then considered how and why a spaceship would be made from cardboard.
The answer came from a thought experiment: what if deep space travelers found that their metal ships were problematic for their purpose, and that having a spaceship made from living material would make more sense? Krawczuk’s research led him to understand symbiotic relationships that already exist, focusing on plants that can survive in harsh environments, including the Saguaro Cactus and its relationship to the Gila Woodpecker and and the Purple Martin - who live inside it. The cactus’ unique biological processes also lend it neatly to fitting into a futuristic art piece; for instance, the cactus does not have leaves, but instead photosynthesizes on its skin.
In order to further elevate the cardboard into the imagination of outer space, black light mycelium networks were drawn onto the cardboard by an illustrator, invoking a dual nature and greater depth. Other objects that others may easily discard have been incorporated throughout the experience, at once creating an environment that is playful, slightly disorienting, and inspiring to others.
When considering who would be using these freight services - what would they be hauling, why would they need freight or passenger services and who would be working on them - Krawczuk pulled from a previous project, the Werewolf Union. Started as a way for individuals to casually engage with the thought of unionization (Why Werewolves? Because vampires would never unionize!) - and grew into Krawczuk’s personal way of collectivizing independent artists he works with - by creating a logo and giving out t-shirts to other creatives he has worked with since 2020, so other artists could know they had a common connection when they wear the shirts. The Werewolf Union evolved again when they became the stewards of the space freighters, conveniently leaving Earth to man the freighters so the full moon would no longer trigger a metamorphosis.
The piece also takes a turn from Lost Horizon Night Market in some other critical ways -
Audience Size -
Where LHNM is all about a mass spectacle, that one can get overwhelmed by, find connections in, or just wait in line, the Nebula is for one or two people in a dedicated, focused way, reducing the energetic load on the participant and allowing them to immerse.
Potential for Scalability -
Where the Night Market creates for the night - The Nebula can be recurring (happening multiple times) and passive (once someone is let in, it can run itself). It is also further scalable in that if there is demand - multiple versions can be built - as it was based on mostly commodity parts that are easily available to find.
This piece, while a worthwhile work, with real interactions for those who engage with it, could also be seen as a prototype to inspire others through it’s use of accessible and easy to work with materials, comprehensible scope, and relative financial scale.
It should also be noted that work has not yet reached its stated goal of being installed into a storage space, and may never get there. The artist is looking to work with a storage unit company, but is also looking for grants for space, or other businesses with an unused space that could possibly be publicly accessible.
Currently, I am not asking for payment for the experience. But, I would be interested in selling the experience to someone, or to charge people to view it. I am currently considering a structure in which people would pay me what they would charge for 90 minutes of their time, to create an equitable payment structure.
==== I asked AI to help me write the above====
==== here is what it came up with,====
====with some refinements====
Let me stop you right here.
I’ve left things intentionally vague—because expectations are premeditated disappointments, and surprise is the last true magic. Feel free to walk away now and experience this cold.
But for those who prefer a roadmap: I build portals where the ordinary becomes cosmic. The Journey to the Nebula is a two-person starship carved from cardboard and collective imagination, housed in a storage unit—because art should live where life happens, not where money flows.
THE WORK
This is a 90-minute ritual disguised as a sci-fi tour:
A control room built from Amazon boxes and blacklight mycelium, channeling Arte Povera’s radical humility.
A werewolf union’s cargo freighter , where interstellar travel liberates workers from lunar tyranny.
A nebula that recalibrates your emotional resonance—through gratitude protocols I stole from post-teleportation trauma manuals.
It’s Lost Horizon Night Market’s quieter sibling: where mass spectacle becomes intimate alchemy. Two people. One ship. No lines.
THE WHY
In 2020, I drove cross-country with my life in a Tacoma. At a $200/month storage unit, I realized: This is the new avant-garde space. Not a gallery—a glorified closet where art fights to exist.
So I asked:
What if spaceships grew like cacti? (Hence the Saguaro hull, inspired by woodpecker symbiosis.)
What if unions were for werewolves? (Because vampires would never organize.)
What if the most radical tool we have is paying attention together?
THE NOW
It’s free—but I’ll ask you to pay what 90 minutes of your labor is worth.
It’s unfinished—this prototype may never reach a storage unit, and that’s the point.
It’s yours—steal the blueprint. Cardboard is cheap. Wonder is cheaper.
