Jonah Gabriel Haas is a cultural anthropologist, an event producer, a messenger, a guardian, and a lucid dreamer. He brings a unique perspective and experience to Burning Man after over a decade co-founding and producing Lucidity Festival in Santa Barbara, CA. He is most in his purpose while designing immersive experiences that are in service to building community. In regards to this artistic modality he shares, “I see the serendipity, creativity, and magic that we foster through this medium as an important and deeply valid way of making meaning out of the absurd and complex experience of being human on planet Earth in this Now.”
Jon Mitchell, a.k.a. Argus, was publisher of the Burning Man Journal, the Jackrabbit Speaks newsletter, and the Burning Man website from 2016 to 2019. He joined the Comm Team as a volunteer in 2010 and as year-round staff in 2014. He co-wrote a big story about spending 24 hours at the Temple of Juno in 2012. His first Burn was in 2008.
John Valentino lives in New Orleans, Louisiana, and is the Art Discovery Manager for the Burning Man Art Department. He first came to Burning Man 2012 as part of the New Orleans CORE project Baby Brulé. In 2013 he was the lead artist for the CORE project, Alter of the Wetlands, and led the New Orleans Pavilion in the 2014 Souk. In 2015 he was awarded an Honorarium for Krewe of the Dusty Playa, an artwork commemorating the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. John is a Professor of New Media and Animation in the Department of Art and Visual Design at Southeastern Louisiana University. Each year, between November and February, he designs and builds the royalty float for the New Orleans Mardi Gras parading organization Krewe du Vieux.
John Marx is a San Francisco-based Lyrical Avant-Garde architect, and a part time student of Absurdity, Paradox, Kindness, and Art. He has a special interest in how we can help reconnect architecture and art to the passions people feel for life. He was invited to participate in the 2017 Burning Man European Leadership summit in Stockholm, which revealed to him how viral Burning Man culture can be, and it inspired him to go forth, helping to “encourage people to embrace community and kindness through participatory art.”
John Curley (that's me) has been Burning since the relatively late date of 2004, and in 2008 I spent the better part of a month on the playa, documenting the building and burning of Black Rock City in words and pictures. I loved it, and I've been doing it ever since.
I was a newspaper person in a previous life, and I spent many years at the San Francisco Chronicle. At the time I left, in 2007, I was the deputy managing editor in charge of Page One and the news sections of the paper. Since then, I've turned a passion for photography into a second career. I shoot for editorial, commercial and private clients. I've also taught a little bit, including two years at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism and a year at San Francisco State University.
I live on the San Mateo coast, just south of San Francisco in California.
John Briant is a default world ship captain, sailor, mountain biker, spearfisherman, tiny house builder and van-lifer. At-home no bullshit bike repair hack.
Halcyon is a 21-year Burning Man participant and co-founder of Pink Heart camp. He is author of "Love more. Fear less." and producer of the Burning Man short film, "The Pink Path." He's won Webby awards for his over-the-top personal site & his "Love On Demand" video podcast HugNation.com. Halcyon co-founded the San Diego based "1st Saturdays" homeless outreach program based on Burning Man Principles and coaches people how to be radically self expressed in the default world. You can find his full Playa Tips & Tricks series at www.PlayaPrinciples.com
Joel Balsam is based in Montréal, Canada, and has been to Black Rock City on three life-affirming and simultaneously life-challenging occasions. When he’s not roaming the playa meeting everyone he can, or attending Regional burns, he’s writing about culture and travel for publications such as National Geographic, TIME, BBC, and Lonely Planet.
As Burning Man's Civic Arts Coordinator, Joe develops tools, engagement opportunities, and artist interfaces that extend Burning Man culture and practice from playa to public spaces. Joe's first year on playa was 2010. Since then he has been a part of numerous Theme Camps, performance groups, and other exercises in desert weirdness.
As a core member of Burning Man's Communications Team, Jim is responsible for event-related communications, serves as one of Burning Man’s spokespersons, oversees Burning Man Information Radio and the webcast, and is a representative on the Unified Command. He has attended the event annually since 1996 and was given the playa name “ronjon” in 1997 when he was handed a radio and put in charge of the gate.
Jim was a reporter for a dozen years, including four years in Washington, D.C. covering Congress, the Pentagon and NASA. He has more than 20 years experience in agency and corporate public relations. In his free time he oversees a team campaigning a ’69 VW Beetle in off road races, including the Baja 1000, and is writing a book on the history of the Mint 400.