GISH: What Exactly IS the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt?
What do you think of when you picture a scavenger hunt? If you have ever engaged in scouting as a child, you might picture a summer camp activity, with teams foraging through the woods looking for hidden treasures. If you have ever traveled to a little town (or even a not-so-little town) that may or may not have been a bit off the beaten path, you might think of checklists of quaint shops or museums, parks or park benches named after Important People In The Town.
But what happens when a scavenger hunt is comprised not of something someone left for you to find, but of things you bring into being to share with others?
That, in a somewhat understated nutshell, is GISH.
Conceived from the twisted mind of Misha Collins lo these ten years ago now, the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt (GISH) is part art show, part social experiment. The list of items is not a list of things to “go” and “see” but an indescribable medley of “what-ifs” set to the tune of a smashed harmonica and untuned bagpipe (though really, does anybody ever actually tune bagpipes?). “What if” you could host a birthday party underwater? “What if” you could float a Christmas tree over your neighborhood? “What if” you fed a sick loved one a bowl of chicken soup…with a leaf blower? Participants in GISH find a perverse pleasure in following these “what-ifs” and more to their undeniably dreadful conclusion, all the while muttering things like “it seemed like a good idea at the time”.
While on the surface, GISH appears to be a study in insanity, an annual event that claims to cause unreasonable pain and suffering, underneath the glitter-crusted veneer, it is much more than that. GISH is an exercise in creative freedom, in social connectivity, in political advocacy, and much more. What started for me as a catalyst to jolt me out of a creative slump ended up providing me much, much more. Not only is participating in GISH carte blanche permission to shake up your daily routine, it is also a window to the rest of the world and the goodness of the people in it. It is an opportunity to find people who become your chosen family. It is a chance to relieve your childhood — or a fond-if-inaccurate version of it — through the freedom to play. And, as it turns out, you do find some hidden treasures after all…within yourself.
