Burning Man gratefully acknowledges our many valued participants, volunteers and supporters who joined us in 2014 in celebrating and exploring the limitless creative possibilities of our community.
We’re a community-based organization, and everything we do is driven by community participation, communal effort and gifting. While ticket sales cover the cost of producing the event in Black Rock City, your generous donations support our year round work directly, as well as our organizational capacity to execute them.
Read on for a look back at a just a few of the highlights from our 2014 community-based programs and projects. We couldn’t have done it without your support!
New in 2014
From launching our new burningman.org website to creating a new Burning Man Arts Program that will inspire and fund art projects for years to come, 2014 was a year of accomplishments and growth for Burning Man.
Thanks to your support, in 2014 we were able to build our infrastructure so we can be responsive to the needs of our community as it continues to grow. Our new website is symbolic of this growth as we start our first full year since the merger of the Burning Man Art Department and the Black Rock Arts Foundation (BRAF) to create Burning Man Arts.
Thanks to the merger we are now able to provide more grants to artists than ever before, bringing more art to Black Rock City and offer more opportunities for artists to create and exhibit work outside of Burning Man.
Arts
Global Art Grants – Artichoke
In 2014, in collaboration with the UK-based Artichoke Trust, Burning Man provided its first grant under the newly reorganized Burning Man Arts program to bring an ambitious community art project to Derry-Londonderry, Northern Ireland. This David Best temple will turn the notion of bonfires and burning in Northern Ireland upside-down. Read more here.
In addition, Burning Man Arts has awarded a grant to support documentary filmmaker Laurent LeGall, who is working on a full-length film about David Best’s life and work. He will shoot the temple project in Northern Ireland for the film, which is expected to be released sometime in 2015.
Big Art for Small Towns – Desert Tortoise
As part of the Big Art for Small Towns initiative, we collaborated with the City of Fernley to create the “Desert Tortoise,” an impressive art piece composed of mosaic tiles prepared by 2,400 Fernley school children. “Desert Tortoise,” a reflection of Nevada’s wildlife, was selected as the third, and permanent, art installation for a new park being constructed on Main Street, across from City Hall and the courthouse in Fernley. The project unified the community around Burning Man art principles to create a civic project. The other two art installations, which are temporary, “The Bottlecap Gazebo” and “Rockspinner 6,” are interactive large-scale art pieces that will also be placed in the park for the next two years.
Civic Engagement
Burners Without Borders
Due to this community’s relentless participation and support, 2014 was an incredible year for Burners Without Borders.
BWB provided over $15K in grants to over 20 new projects that wouldn’t otherwise been possible, and long-term programs have blossomed in beautiful and unexpected ways. BWB’s Detroit Backpack project, now in its sixth year, experienced unprecedented growth thanks to a significant financial donation that enabled over 700 backpacks full of winter survival supplies to be distributed to Detroit’s homeless. BWB’s Motomoto fire spinning program, serving street youth in Kenya, has now expanded to encompass robust interventions that include teaching the life skills and job skills that will help them get off the dangerous streets of Nairobi.
The work that BWB began in 2013 continued to grow in 2014, most notably BWB’s Hurricane Sandy Relief program and the Jakmel Ekspresyon Screenprinting project in Haiti. In 2013, BWB gifted over $2.5 million in free demolition and house removal to low-income residents of Union Beach, NJ who lost their homes to Hurricane Sandy. This gift enabled these families to quickly take advantage of federal funds that were crucial in helping them get back on their feet. In 2014, fifteen of those residents received the first modular homes in the region, and more homes are on the way.
BWB will be inspiring more community projects and bringing innovation to disaster recovery in 2016. You are invited to participate. Join us!
Civic Art Program – The Bike Bridge
The Bike Bridge is both an art piece and a collaboration project with the youth of Oakland, artist Michael Christian, and with partner organization The Crucible. The twelve enrolled participants, all young women, began the project with classes in welding and art-bicycle creation, generously hosted by The Crucible. The program culminated in the collaborative creation of a large-scale sculpture made of reclaimed bicycle parts. Check out the documentary.
Global Network of Emerging Community Leaders
Regional Network
The Regional Network is the year-round embodiment of the Burning Man experience, supporting it as a global cultural movement. In 2014 more than 250 volunteer Regional Contacts in over 125 regions in 34 countries help local Burners connect with each other, while bringing Burning Man principles and culture into their local communities through community initiatives, collaborative projects, art, creative self-expression and communal effort.
Last year, new Regional Contacts started igniting activity in small, but growing communities like Finland and the United Arab Emirates. Regional groups across five continents collaborated to produce over 65 official events in the spirit of the Ten Principles including AfrikaBurn to the first Dutch Decompression. They brought their local flavor to the ring of interactive Caravansary Souk tents at the base of the Man. You can learn more about the Network and plug in at regionals.burningman.org.
Global Leadership Conference
In February 2014 the Burning Man Global Network hosted its first overseas conference – The European Leadership Summit – in Berlin. Participants addressed the global growth of our culture, the 10 Principles, interactive art and transformative experiences. Burning Man community organizers and thought leaders registered from 23 countries. Representatives from Austria, Holland, Spain, Belgium, England, Czech, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Russia, Sweden, Poland, Sweden, and Latvia, and the USA shared ideas, skills, and worked together towards a shared vision for the future. Burning Man staff and the local Burner community in Berlin provided a platform for these leaders to convene and collaborate.
European Leadership Summit
In April 2014 we hosted our 8th Annual Global Leadership Conference (GLC) in the Bay Area. Over 300 Burning Man community leaders from around the world gathered in San Francisco to connect, share ideas and develop collaborative projects.
Education
Desert Art Preview
Additionally, for the past two years we’ve held our “Desert Art Preview” at San Francisco’s De Young Museum, a lecture series and art exhibition, which offers a sneak preview of some of the many notable art projects in progress for Burning Man 2014. This event is one of the many opportunities we offer urban communities to learn about new projects and how they can get involved and support up-and-coming, highly collaborative artists.
Please help us spread the word about the many ways Burning Man is changing the world for the better. We appreciate your participation in our community and we appreciate your help in extending our work beyond Black Rock City.
Again, all of us at Burning Man extend our deepest gratitude for the great work all of us did together in 2014, and we hope you will join our efforts in 2015. Please keep participating!
oh, really, a David Best temple is the first thing to get a grant under the newly reorganized Burning Man Arts program?
Color me shocked!!
from 2007 SFgate article:
“The person who has received the most from the nonprofit is Burning Man’s most well-known artist, David Best. In 2003, the Petaluma-based artist received a $15,000 grant from Black Rock Arts, which at the time was by far the largest grant doled out by the organization. That same year, four other artists split the remaining $3,250.
In 2004, Best joined the board of directors, working three hours a week to help find artists and projects worthy of the grants.
“We needed to have an artist on the board,” Harvey said. “It was a good idea.”
But in 2005, while acting as a director, Best received $10,200 from the board to build the Hayes Green Temple, a popular city attraction that was set on Octavia between Hayes and Fell streets. According to then-executive director Pritchett, the organization was approached by the mayor’s office, which specifically requested a Best temple to coincide with World Environment Day.
Pritchett said Best recused himself from the vote, but her colleagues were aware his involvement would give the appearance of conflict. The foundation was on a tight deadline from the mayor’s office, Pritchett said, and in the scramble didn’t consider declining the offer or steering it to another arts nonprofit.”
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Best has earned his grants. Name another artist who has started a tradition so important to the culture. He has always behaved with utmost integrity. Without Best coming to the rescue, there may have been no temple at the event in 2014.
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“…in celebrating and EXPLOITING the limitless creative possibilities of our community.”
Fixed, assholes
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So long Burning Man. You were my favorite.
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