Burning Man

By Agate Rublovksa

The Black Rock Desert sun hangs heavily above your head. The heat is excruciating. The empty void of desert surrounds you—under your feet, there is nothing but hot sand and dust, and above your head,  a clear, blue sky. At a distance, there are art installations that seem to emerge from the bare desert soil: huge sculptures made out of various materials, depicting humans or animals, psychedelic shapes that light up in all neon colours at night, ships, stuck deep in the desert sand, a wooden statue of a Man that will be burnt soon, and pretty much anything else that you can think of. Music resonates from somewhere. There are people, thousands of people dressed up in the strangest and most creative ways – wearing feathers, wigs, lace, wings, masks, or nothing at all except for some paint… Welcome to the Burning Man festival, the ultimate experience of the surreal.

 

This experience is captivating. This experience may be life-changing. However, Burning Man is not solely an event. Burning Man is a way of life, a way of thinking, and a global initiative for change.

It all started in the summer of 1986 with two friends, Larry Harvey and Jerry James, building an 8 feet tall wooden man and burning it on a beach in San Francisco. They most probably did not expect this unique but generally insignificant act of self-expression to turn into an annual event that would attract thousands of people, or that the group of like-minded friends would evolve into a thriving global community. However, that is exactly what happened. And what is more, the whole Burning Man ethos has become a relevant force promoting sustainability and change on a global level.

 

The main institutional body behind the Burning Man nowadays is the ‘Black Rock City’, a limited liability company that manages all the organizational and financial aspects of the event. The company has clearly defined Ten Principles of Conduct for the Burning Man community within and outside the event: for example, ‘Radical Inclusion’: anybody can be part of the community; ‘Decommodification’: distancing from the prevalent consumerism and commercialism; ‘Radical Self-Reliance’: an encouragement to discover, exercise and rely on one’s own inner resources; ‘Radical Self-Expression’: encouragement for creative action; ‘Civic Responsibility’: the events organized should foster communal welfare; and ‘Leaving No Trace’: with respect to the environment, no physical trace should remain after any event. These principles thus not only emphasize the individual’s hedonistic experience and artistic expression, but also the communal values and sustainability that are at the core of the Burning Man ethos.  But what is more, these principles do not remain neatly printed on some paper, unobserved. Instead, these principles are repeatedly being put to action.

 

Moreover, the Black Rock City LLC does not work alone. It is associated with multiple non-profit organizations that all work on attaining similar goals. For example, one of the associative organizations is ‘Burners Without Borders’, a community-led volunteer group that acts in disaster-stricken areas to help people rebuild their lives and homes, and encourages fundraising to bring about local community initiatives around the world. Or the ‘Black Rock Arts Foundation’, a non-profit organization that works to promote the production and exhibition of community-driven, inclusive, and interactive art in Nevada.

 

A beautiful example of the global relevance of the Burning Man initiative is that of the ‘Black Rock Solar’, a non-profit organization that was set up in the summer of 2007, when a group of volunteers installed a 30 kilowatt solar panel array on the desert surface during the annual Burning Man event. Later that fall, the team moved the array to the tiny desert town of Gerlach, Nevada, donating the solar project to the town’s school.  From that time on, the organization has focused on educating the community about renewable energy, and how it is important in addressing climate change.

 

The point the Burning Man thus makes is quite clear: it takes active participation instead of passive consumption to become a responsible individual, responsible member of a community and a responsible member of our ecosystem. It is each individual’s right to express oneself without borders; but it is also one’s obligation to be respectful towards others, and towards the environment. This is an example of what art should be—a power capable of bringing about initiatives that are relevant to any single individual on this planet, because it is, after all, about the environment we live in. And such a mostly non-profit organizational network is repeatedly proving itself as not only efficient, but also long-lasting and capable of making a difference.

 

As the piercingly hot sun sets, as the desert soil and air starts cooling down, the wooden

man is set on fire, indicating the closing of the event. But the actual hard work to make a difference will go on, up to the next year when the Man is burnt again.

 

*You can find out more information on the Burning Man website: www.burningman.com

Agate Rublovska, class of 2015, is a Linguistics and Cognitive Science major from Riga, Latvia

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