Yúcale – click any image for full size
Update: Yúcale has closed, and the host parcel is now home to the OHM Valley hangout).
Saturday, May 4th, 2019 saw the grand opening – in fact the official return – of a base of operations for the Yúcale project and community in Second Life, Originally called the Yúcale Café Gallery (the name by which it is still known on Facebook), the project has a long history, as founder Samiraa Adderstein informed me during the second of two visits at the weekend.
Yúcale started in December 2014, we ran from then until June 2018, when I had a half years break from SL due to RL stuff. I started with a 300 LI parcel back then, and we’ve grown a lot since then, and actually moved three times! We also had some smaller events before the official re-opening, and a benefit for Feed A Smile.
– Samiraa Adderstein founder of the Yúcale Coffee Gallery
Now called Yúcale Giramondi Virtlantis, the new location for Yúcale covers just under 1/3 of a Full region, and has been designed by Samiraa – Samum to her friends – with the support of Pater Bac (Bacoo Balut) to be a place for mixed arts: exhibitions by photographers and painters (which will change bimonthly), together with readings by authors, music events. It is also a place where people can – as the About Land description notes, “meet every now and then to play games, listen to radio plays or watch movies together”.
We used to be the Yúcale Coffee Gallery, but I changed the name this time, because Kip Boahn of the Virtlantis language project sponsored us for almost a year, and it is a way for us to say “thank you”. Also, Giramondi was a small café in my home town that ran events like we do here. It has now sadly closed, but I wanted to remember it in our name.
– Samiraa Adderstein explaining the name change
The new design for the community has a pleasantly Mediterranean feel to it. With a southern aspect and shoulder to the west and east by high cliffs, there is an intimate village feel to the location. With moorings down at the water’s edge connected by path and steps to the village above, it’s easy to imagine coming across it whilst sailing along the coast of Italy or Spain, and deciding to come alongside and enjoy an exploratory stroll up to the village square.
For the official opening, Yúcale features art by Belice Benoir, Jaëlle Faerye, Xirana Oximoxi, Balbera Resident and Samiraa herself. Individual exhibitions are located in different buildings both in the village and the parcel as a whole – Jaëlle’s work is displayed within the out warehouse in the south-west corner of the region overlooking the southern moorings and outside of the village, while Belice’s art can be found up in the little chapel looking down on village from a perch on the eastern highlands.
Yúcale – Balbera Resident
Yúcale is less a place than an idea. We do cooperative events quite often. On Sunday May 12th we have Sunday Lounge, a travelling event if you like. And As May 25th is International Towel Day, we’ll be holding an event to honour Douglas Adams with author readings, etc.
– Samiraa Adderstein
Scattered around and between the art locations are various venues for music – notably the village square and the circus tent down close to the waterfront, while some of the gallery spaces are large enough to accommodate music and dancing during openings. A restaurant / bar sits to one side of the village square, while a little book store (still being finalised at the time of our visits) pays homage to Yúcale’s café origins. In the unlikely event you have problems finding your way around, major venues within the location are linked via a teleport system as well.
Details of events at Yúcale are published via the Yúcale Café Gallery public Facebook page, the in-world .::Yúcale::. (subscribers at the location), and via a Flickr group. A new in-world publication has also been started, again available from Yúcale.
SLurl Details
- Yúcale Giramondi Virtlantis (Regulus, rated: Adult)