Three Pieces of Karima

Karima Hoisan provides a little life lesson in the midst of an impressive career of creativity on Kitely, in the form of her YouTube channel. Memory is important. You probably already know that Karima shares poems, personal reflections, and anecdotes on her website the Digital Rabbit Hole, but perhaps the most enduring and accessible record of her work on almost two dozen regions - called rather grandiloquently 'worlds' on Kitely -  is Karima's YouTube channel.
It's fair to say that Karima Hoisan has always posted wonderful content on Youtube over the past 12 years, as it's an ideal locus for her multimedia presence, in intimate collaboration over the years with Dale Innis, and, before her untimely death, Natascha Randt. Recently, she has begun expanding her video repertoire. Here are three pieces of it.

Karima and Nat

Much of Kitely is inaccessible to the general visitor, making it a bit of a black hole of creativity from the point of view of the hypergrid explorer - there's probably good stuff happening but it's too difficult to get to, so one just shrugs, and moves on. Karima is one of a handful of residents who have consistently made out-of-town  tourists like the Safari group welcome. Our first visit to one of her builds -Vector's Vortex - was nine years ago today, in November 2014. Yet despite repeated Safaris to builds by Dale, Nat and Karima, - with contributions by other pals, from time to time - we have barely scratched the surface when it comes to the range of imaginative chapters they have put together in the past decade or so.

Dale and Karima, at the end of The Wizard

Just recently Karima has launched a project to film all her builds on Kitely. It's a smart move because it protects her legacy and expands the pool of imaginative creation even further, as well as serving as a very inviting travel guide. Here are just three of her videos - I have embedded them but please take a moment to go watch, Like, Comment and Subscribe over on Youtube. It makes a difference if you do.

 'The Hudson Line' was built around the time the Safari tours started, in a very different Opensim to the one we see today. No animesh - or really any mesh! Pretty much anything you needed had to be made from scratch, or hunted for across a largely unincorporated system of grids. The biggest two creators of content at that time were both ladies who were dedicated to making things that were free for everyone to enjoy mod and share - Linda Kellie and Arcadia Asylum. Karima made full use of their contribution to the community. The build highlights the most magical and picaresque part of the Second Life/OpenSim platform - a train ride is not merely a trip down a tunnel of two dimensional backdrops. You can get out and explore the scenes, lovingly and humorously put together to give maximum delight and put you in a 'New York state of mind'.

'The Mountain' is another journey-build, but this time, you're going to have to climb yourself! Or, maybe take an eagle - they depart every 10 seconds. Karima's inspiration comes from many sources - books, and music, and poetry; paintings, and legends, and real world events. Once again you're in a landscape that invites a totally subjective and open ended exploration. This technique is the hallmark of a really effective poet, for in the very freedom she offers the audience, she commands their attention. Inspired by the paintings of Markus Åkesson to whom Karima very properly applied before using his work inworld, it's an uphill journey of love, from a tropical asian seaboard up to the heights of delight. We're planning a Safari visit to this build in February 2024.

 'In Your Head' is a the newest of the three builds showcased here, and is a collaboration with - of course - script-king Dale Innis but also SL favorite RAG Randt, who provided, well, the Head mentioned in the title. Once again, this is a journey of exploration, but it's the inner geography of the mind and memory, with all its fragments and feelings, that we're travelling through. 

One of the great strengths of Karima's work is its variation. No two builds are even remotely alike, and if they share the trope of 'the journey' that's baked into the concept of storytelling on any level. From Wizards in woods, to oriental riverboats, AI art galleries, to colorful sailing ships, from the inner mind to outer space, each build has a unique note. Twenty different -truly different - stories told in twenty different tones, it's an impressive portfolio in any world.

HG Addresses

grid.kitely.com:8002:The Hudson Line

grid.kitely.com:8002:In Your Head

grid.kitely.com:8002:The Mountain