Two roomies just launched the most surprising Kickstarter ever
We all know and love Kickstarter for being a fabulous platform where users can raise money for any cause under the sun. And I mean any cause – like the time when one guy raised over $50K to make potato salad (after asking for $10), or when almost $2K was raised for meat soap. Yep.
So after all the kooky Kickstarters that have been brought to the attention of the public, we kind of thought there wouldn’t be any Kickstarter that would surprise us. We were wrong. Two roomies in Brooklyn want to transform their apartment into a museum that commemorates a 1994 infamous ice skating incident.
First of all, for those of you who aren’t up-to-date on your ice skating history, this refers to the feud between Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. The two were competitors at the 1994 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Detroit. On January 6, 1994, Kerrigan’s leg was injured by a man who was hired by Harding’s ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, and her bodyguard, Shawn Eckhardt. Kerrigan was forced to withdraw from the competition. It was a tragic moment in women’s sports that will go down in history—especially if roomies Viviana Olen and Matt Harkins have anything to do with it.
Now back to present-day: these Williamsburg roommates, Olen and Harkins, want to transform their apartments into a museum to inform the public about the incident and the response. “It will be visual,” Olen told 1010 Wins. “We will also have an audio element, [and] we’re going to have some iPads in the walls that show the figure skating routines. . .we’re actually going to make the lighting really good so it has an experience walking through.”
But where did they get this crazy idea? According to their Kickstarter page, after watching a documentary about Harding on Netflix, “they realized their hallway would be the perfect place to house a museum dedicated to the 1994 American incident and the response.”
The 20-somethings realized that lots of people their own age didn’t know about the incident, so they decided it was time to educate— and explore the psychological divide between what they call “a Tonya” and “a Nancy.”
Both Olen and Harkins are comedians, but this is no joke.
“We’re coming into this with the utmost respect,” Olen told the Washington Post. “We’re not really focusing on the attack. We want to focus on these athletes, and the culture of reaction and gender stereotypes and how this defined so much of 1994 and so much of our consciousness.”
Turns out they’ve tapped into something real: their Kickstarter has raised almost $1,500 and their initial goal was $75. So what will they do with all this money?
According to their Kickstarter page their funding goal will be used “in the creation of exhibitions, including but not limited to the enlargement of historical documents (Tonya and Nancy pix). If there is enough interest, [Olen and Harkins] can begin acquiring artifacts, facilitate more public access, and curate grander exhibits. This includes people’s crafting projects, wax figures, historical reenactments, and other Tonya and Nancy related creations which can be deemed part of the cultural response to this event and therefore added to the museum’s collection.”
If Olen’s Instagram is any indication, the museum’s installation has already begun.
