BRC Multiverse: Create Home Away From Home At Home

It seems the master of all tricksters has played yet another prank on us all. And if truth be told, it’s an epic one! Now that we are not building Black Rock City 2020, we have a once-in-a-lifetime (we hope) chance to truly fulfil this year’s intended theme: Multiverse, the multiple, neverending number of realities. We can make it more real than we would have ever imagined!

What better way to do this than to create our Home Away From Home at Home. Yes exactly! Let’s create our version of BRC in our home, and share the vision of this creation with the world.

Is it going to be a statue, painting, sticker, story, video, costume, pottery, meal, drink, performance, photograph, poem? Well, I don’t know, and I am curious for you to show me! I will be creating my BRC — Multiverse 645-60 (yup, I just claimed this number; you can claim yours) in an old suitcase, which served as a mini traveling educational installation about Burning Man for many years.

Click on photos to see details

I invite you to join me in creating a BRC Multiverse of endless possibilities! Take your time! Take good care of yourself, your loved ones and others. Do what you need to do right now to make sense of our new reality.

This is also a time when many Burners are busy showing the world we are more than just a party in the desert or at a Regional Event. They are creating civic projects, inventions, innovations, and brilliant art to keep people entertained, sane, and, most importantly, alive.

This all deserves our energy and resources. But while we understand the importance of our skills and ideas for our families, communities and the world right now, it does not diminish the fact that many of us will miss BRC terribly this year.

I know I will, as BRC is truly my Home away from Home, where I meet my chosen family.  Many of them I can only meet there. I was not ready to miss BRC 2020 when my country — the Czech Republic — and pretty much the whole of Europe shut down.

I started to realize this year’s journey to the dust would not be happening for many international Burners like me, and the idea of creating a mini BRC was helping me make peace with that inevitable reality.

The project was also intended for other people who couldn’t travel to BRC due to lost jobs, closed borders, health issues etc. Now, after the Burning Man Project announcement about not building BRC 2020, this project is radically including all of us.

Over the past few days, I have also learned about similar endeavours and stunning artwork being born. A great artist and amazing human being, Scotland Symons, has recreated a tiny version of the infamous Black Hole Bar on playa.

Click on photos to see details

My heart skipped a beat when I saw the pictures; the resemblance is uncanny. Scotland has started Tiny Burn — Build Your Own Tiny Camp Challenge, which is encouraging people to use what they have at home, build what they love, and fill the void of canceled events (no matter if it’s BRC, a Regional Event, a convention or a camping trip) with fun and creativity.

And that is not all. Rumours about a mini Gigsville started to flood Facebook, and then I finally found the brilliant art work by Kasey Smith. Her models are part of a fledgling theme camp in Gigsville that she, Chris Estes and Diane Wellman have put together.

“We’re all HO scale railroad modelers, so we’re building a HO-scale mashup of Burning Man and Santa’s Village called the Ho Ho Ho Dome,” said Kasey.

“I’m starting my portion of the model with Gigsville, so we have a CarBQ, our bar, and some of our playa events like PlayaTrans and Jalapeno Fisting depicted, with a couple more signature Gigsville elements in the works. Eventually the model is going to live in a series of glass tables that will make up the bar for our hot chocolate bar.”

Click on photos to see details

She promised to eventually update their Instagram with the project. In the meantime, you can enjoy parts of mini Gigsville and the dust storm in Kasey’s photos above.

No matter what we call it and how we do it. Let’s create it, our HOME, now away from HOME, at our HOME and share it with each other. The possibilities are endless!

Scotland and I (and maybe someone else we don’t know about yet) will be collecting your creations and sharing them with the world. We have time. Let’s stay in touch.

We’ve been told many times that from nothing, we can create everything! Well, thanks Larry, we are going to do that now, once again.

For more information about the BRC Multiverse project, you can contact me here, join us on Facebook or stay tuned via the website.


You may be wondering how this relates to our plans for VBRC… we’re asking ourselves the same questions. To get involved and learn more about VBRC,  fill out this form.

About the author: Misa Rygrova

Misa Rygrova

Misa has been burning since 2010. She learned about Burning Man by accident on internet and is dust addict ever since she stepped on playa. She started to volunteer as Regional Contact for Czech Republic and Eastern Europe, is helping the Regional Network and in 2015 became the first Burning Man Project Fellow. She is based in Prague in Europe and makes sure Europe keeps Burning. Misa also loves to wear black and volunteer with Gate, Perimeter & Exodus. Her name should be written with diacritics, but it usually breaks computers...let's try it... Míša (pronounced as Misha or Meesha).

8 Comments on “BRC Multiverse: Create Home Away From Home At Home

  • Ross says:

    I was going to do a thing where I invite a bunch of dirty homeless people to live with me for the week and watch them drink all my booze and snort all my cocaine and try to have sex with my wife. And after they leave without saying ‘goodbye’ I’ll get to clean up after them.

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  • Leeway says:

    Well said, Misa! I’m still grieving for the loss of Black Rock City this year, but the final step in that process – acceptance – seems a lot like what you’ve posted here. Maybe this is a year for us to break some of the patterns that had gotten stale and envision a new BRC together, in miniature if need be.

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  • Rusty Pineapple says:

    As a Burning Man skydiver I just want to say I’m stoked to see us represented in the miniatures! Thank you!

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  • Susan says:

    Cruise America is offering reduced rates for Labor Day Weekend, as you can imagine. I’ve reserved the same model I had last year, and I’m going to park it in my driveway and do Special K and smoke meth all week and never go outside. This is going to be SO much easier than going to Burning Man, but basically exactly the same.

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  • This is so inspiring! I have been working on a design for a mini Children of Chaos Camp bar, complete with a performative event and a movie. Who knew there were other mini-camps in the works? Hope to incorporate it into the Multiverse and eager to explore everyone’s creativity in this virtual collaboration. Thanks!

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  • jose maday bernache says:

    esto es muy emocionante para mi, siempre he querido ir al burning man, ahora si podre estar virtualmente.
    y participar con todos.

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