Mission: JOY – A moving, laugh-out-loud documentary with the Dalai Lama and the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu about finding happiness in troubled times
NFT drop in conjunction with the documentary to be released on Nifty Gateway
The online global watch event of the film Mission: JOY – Finding Happiness in Troubled Times had more than 13 MILLION VIEWS. Richard Branson, Forest Whitaker, Shay Mitchell, Jay Shetty, Gloria Estefan, Kevin Love, Cher and other leaders joined in supporting the worldwide launch of the film—which premiered as Top 10 documentary on iTunes.
On June 12th, Nifty Gateway, NFT Culture, and three renowned artists are bringing JOY to the metaverse. Henrik Udalen, Daniel Martin and Santiago Pani selected stills from the film as their points of interpretation to create spellbinding art that will bring JOY to their collectors through each piece.
The drop will happen at 18:30 ET on 12th June on Nifty Gateway. Each artist will present 2 pieces in an auction on Nifty Gateway, with the majority of the proceeds going directly to Mission: JOY to help bring the film and its messages to as many people as possible, without regard for ability to pay. Funds raised will help get the film into prisons, schools, universities, faith communities and community groups around the world.
Collectors will have an opportunity to own one of a very small collection of works inspired by Mission: Joy that will help bring the wisdom of the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu to a hurting world.
For more information, and to register for alerts so you don’t miss this incredible opportunity, visit: Nifty Gateway.
BACKGROUND: JOY
His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu came together one last time before the Archbishop passed way for a final joint mission: to share their hard-earned lessons about how we can each create JOY for ourselves, no matter our circumstances.
First, they co-authored The Book of JOY together with Doug Abrams, and it became an international bestseller. That book inspired Co-Director and Producer Peggy Callahan and four Academy Award winners to create the film Mission: JOY – Finding Happiness in Troubled Times.
Mission: JOY is a laugh-out-loud funny documentary about the unlikely friendship between the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu. In their lives they had to deal with some of the worst that humanity has to offer, yet they each transformed the world with actions fueled not by hate and vitriol, but by love and JOY.
The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and has now been featured at 57 other festivals, winning numerous awards. It is now available on iTunes, Amazon, Vudu and Google Play in the US and Canada, and will be available
To operationalize the JOY lessons of the film, the JOY team worked with researchers from UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco, and Harvard to create The BIG JOY Project. In just 7 minutes a day for 7 days, participants discover which micro-acts of JOY work best for them. People from 120 countries have participated, and they’ve completed more than 43,000 micro-acts of JOY. It is the world’s largest-ever citizen science project on JOY.
Now the JOY team is pleased to welcome the contribution of NFT Culture, Nifty Gateway, and these phenomenal artists as they bring JOY to Web3.
BACKGROUND: THE ARTISTS
These supremely talented artists are part of the Arthouse Collective based in the Netherlands, London and Mexico.
About Henrik Udalen
Henrik Udalen is a self-taught artist whose creative production revolves around classic figurative painting presented in a contemporary manner. Henrik seeks to explore ideas revolving around absurdism, nostalgia, loneliness and alienation, juxtaposed with frail beauty. Though he is a figurative painter, his focus has always been the emotional content rather than narratives. His work often features a dream-like or limbo-like atmosphere with elements of expressionism.
About Daniel Martin
Daniel Martin creates his work through the deformation and recreation of matter. He casts his sculptural paintings via the mastery of chance and mistakes. His collage portraits breathe a universe of undiscovered human artifacts and transmutational structures.
Daniel lives and works in Leiden, the Netherlands. In his current work, he searches for the transmutational properties of matter. The portraits and sculptures do not have a definite form and can be perceived in varied ways. In order to come to new forms, Daniel cuts up paintings, finds things on the street and uses creations made by others. The loose elements from these endeavors are used as disjointed brushstrokes he reassembles into coherent shapes, again creating an object which holds no truth in shape. Daniel Martin sees beauty as a construct.
“I have always been more interested in imperfection or deformation rather than something that looks ‘normal’,” he says. “I see beauty in the abnormality of an organism or object because it becomes something we don’t see each day.”
His work has been published and exhibited nationally and internationally. Exhibitions include the National Museum of the Revolution, Cuba; Duo Phillip Akkerman, Sis Josip Gallery, Den Haag; Havana Biënnale (collaboration with Karang [Karina Alonso]); I never lost you, Kunsthuizen, Leiden; Vigour, Den Gallery, Kuwait.
About Santiago Pani
Santiago Pani (born 1990) is a Mexican artist currently living and working in the Netherlands. Recently he has focused on the portrait series “Personal Universe,” which is inspired by anonymous characters and memories of people stored in our subconscious mind throughout our lives and the idea that sometimes while awake and other times during our dreams, these anonymous visitors will be recalled by our minds to interact and influence our story again. Lately he has found himself very connected to these concepts and ideas, which makes the production of these pieces very organic and visceral. He is part of the artist initiative Arthouse which has two residencies under its wing, Arthouse Holland (NL) and Arthouse Pani (MEX) and organizes projects like the Arthouse 1606 residency and #sketch x4.
About Nifty Gateway
Nifty Gateway is the premier NFT or digital art online auction platform, a decentralized, US based marketplace used for buying and selling digital NFTs online. You can visit their website here. You do not need any type of crypto-wallet. You can buy, sell, collect, store, and display nifties through Nifty Gateway. This auction house is more secure than other platforms.