Photo credit: Ari Fararooy, Design: Tanner Boeger
What’s Now, What’s Next for Burning Man
By John CurleyIn the before times, long, long ago, before the pandemic and lockdowns and cancellations, going to the Black Rock Desert had become a strangely familiar thing. When you exited Interstate 80 and started the lonesome drive across the Paiute lands on Nevada Highway 447, you’d make the long climb up the rise outside Nixon, descend …Read More
The (Not So Secret) Art of Burning 365 — A Conversation With $teven Ra$pa
No one is better equipped to evangelize the wonder and cultural importance of burning every day, everywhere, all the time than Burning Man Project’s Associate Director of Community Events and Founding Member of the Regional Network Committee, $teven Ra$pa. We sat down and asked him a few questions about this wily global culture we’re always …Read More
Presenting The 2020 Dispatch — Stories From Our Most Unique Year Yet
Months in the making, we present the 2020 Dispatch — a richly illustrated microsite that captures just a handful of the powerful stories that emerged from the wildly creative and resilient global Burning Man community over our most unique year yet. Dive into these pages to read how Burners helped out, co-created art, imagined remarkable …Read More
Where Burning Man (Really) Happens
A few weeks ago I threw an outdoor party where, just before sundown, we performed a ritual to take us out of “plague time,” that uncanny and pervasive sense that the world has stopped changing and we have stopped changing with it. What does this have to do with Burning Man? I’ll get there. In …Read More
So, You Want to Visit the Playa This Summer… Part 3: Responsible Recreation, LNT, and Your Safety
A series about visiting the Black Rock Desert in the summer of 2021, with updates from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), insights into desert life, responsible recreation on public lands, Leaving No Trace, staying safe, visiting Gerlach and the surrounding communities, emergency services, and much more. Please use this series as a guide to …Read More
So, You Want to Visit the Playa This Summer… Part 2: Updates from BLM
A series about visiting the Black Rock Desert in the summer of 2021, with updates from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), insights into desert life, responsible recreation on public lands, Leaving No Trace, staying safe, visiting Gerlach and the surrounding communities, emergency services, and much more. Please use this series as a guide to …Read More
Into the Great Unknown, and Beyond
“Burning Man now wants to see how it can shape the world it is part of instead of just reacting to that world.” …Read More
So, You Want to Visit the Playa This Summer… Part 1
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the many complexities it’s created, for the second year in a row, we will not be building Black Rock City together. But the Black Rock Desert exists as a second home to many of us, and you may be thinking about going to the playa this summer. If …Read More
How to Make Burning Man Happen — 365 and Around the World
Have you ever wished you could go to Burning Man 365 days a year? You’ve made it this far, so we’re going to reveal the big secret — YOU CAN! Consider this a cheat sheet for finding a gazillion Burner-y things to do. Behind all of the words and links below are real Burners doing …Read More
What Else Is New With Burning Man? Video Update #2 From Marian
We don’t know what the next year has up its sleeve, but we do know you are all what keeps Burning Man alive. This is the second video update from our CEO Marian Goodell, sharing important news about what’s up with Burning Man Project and Black Rock City. We want to know what you’re planning …Read More
What’s New With Burning Man? An Update From Marian
We don’t know what the next year has up its sleeve, but we do know you are all what keeps Burning Man alive. Our CEO Marian just shared an important update about what’s new with Burning Man Project and Black Rock City. Check out the full video here, and read on for highlights! This is …Read More
Announcing the Virtual Burning Man Experiences for 2021!
Greetings Burners, dreamers, creators, cultural instigators, and community builders! Whether or not we’re able to return to the physical Black Rock City this year, we are excited to announce that we are once again working with visionary creators and technologists in our community to build a constellation of Virtual Burning Man Experiences for 2021 we’re …Read More
The Safety Net Fund: Catching Our Creatives During a Pandemic
Martín Perna was on tour with his band Antibalas and performing in Denver, when he watched as one gig after the other was cancelled. Instead of performing music, he now had to figure out how to function in a global pandemic. “We were in the middle of a tour in the U.S. and had the …Read More
Update: Black Rock City in The Multiverse
Friends, we have a bit of an update for you. What’s up with virtual Black Rock City, you ask? Well, at Burning Man Project we’ve been working behind the scenes to understand how to best meet this moment. In a time of transformation like this one, we see opportunity for the learnings and culture developed …Read More
European Leadership Summit 2020 Online: Together No Matter the Distance
Out of care for the wellbeing of the community, the 2020 European Leadership Summit (ELS) in Tallinn was postponed. Instead of connecting in person on April 2-5, over 230 participants from 29 countries connected online for a mini-summit. By April 4 2020, over three weeks had passed since the Estonian government declared the emergency situation, …Read More
Desert Arts 3View: Past, Present, Future of Burning Man Arts
Pack your favorite pair of multiverse goggles and join us in the Past, Present and Future for our first ever “trispectral” Desert Arts Preview! We are a culture that encourages people to stretch themselves and we are a community that is no stranger to challenge. In fact, we often thrive when there are obstacles and …Read More
Biology of a Black Rock City Burner
Does it hurt right now? Do you feel uncertain, sad or even relieved about not building Black Rock City this year? We share 50% of our genes with a banana (and 97.5% with a mouse), but bananas don’t have the genes I’m gonna talk about here — the ones that create the chemicals to make …Read More
South African Burners Join Forces With Local Volunteers to Help Vulnerable During COVID
By Guest PostKevin Kgara Rack is a long-standing community member of AfrikaBurn who has devoted his time to the participation and engagement of First Nations’ Peoples at the Regional Event and beyond. Like many Burners in South Africa’s capital, Cape Town, Kevin has become involved in Community Action Networks (CAN), self-organized groups that have been instrumental in …Read More
Creating Burning Man Experiences Online — a Grand Unified Theory
Some of the best experiences I’ve had in quarantine have been art experiences, held over conference call software, which felt very much like Burning Man. They didn’t rely on technical expertise or specialized software. They were just ways that small groups of people — some of whom were old friends, some of whom were complete …Read More
Upcoming Global Virtual Events, April 30 – May 5
In some ways we’re all experiencing the great FOMO: missing out on all the things we love, to stay in with our loved ones — and flatten that damn curve. In other ways, it’s the best time ever to join all the parties, workshops and events you’ve ever dreamed of, all over the world — …Read More
Trapped in Paradise, Using Burner Wits at Wits’ End
Athena Demos went to Panama’s Tribal Gathering Festival in search of the sacred feminine, but a global pandemic would lead her to summon her own hard-won “superpowers” in the remote jungle gathering. Athena, a former Executive Director of Los Angeles League of Arts and an Emeritus L.A. Regional Contact, was working on a pitch for …Read More
BRC Multiverse: Create Home Away From Home At Home
By Misa RygrovaIt 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. …Read More
Around the World in Seven Virtual Burns
By Jane LyonsFaced with the cancellation of their local Burns and ongoing lockdown, Regional Burning Man communities have thrown down the gauntlet to the coronavirus: “No place to Burn? Not on our watch!” Instead, they have embraced the challenge, taken to the intertubes and created a range of virtual Burns. Some are getting wiggy with Zoom, Twitch …Read More
On the Front Line With Black Rock City’s Emergency Services Department Volunteers
By Jane LyonsEmergency Services Department (ESD) volunteers won’t be saving our butts on playa this year, but many are on the front line protecting, supporting and saving lives during the COVID-19 crisis. Meet some of our ESD long-timers and first-timers as they share a snapshot of themselves, their work, and the way their playa experience has informed …Read More
Creating Art Experiences in a Plague World — We Can Do This
This past week I have attended a virtual quiz show, a virtual tarot reading, a virtual Big Art Event, and skipped out on a virtual sex party, among other things. People are trying anything, because “just hanging out” on group video chats really isn’t doing it. “Two weeks in,” a friend of mine said, “and …Read More
Upcoming Global Virtual Events, April 15-21
By Jane LyonsThe Burnerverse is bubbling over with virtual events — so many it’s hard to do justice to them in one post. We’ve given it a red hot go anyway. For your pajamed or costumed pleasure, we’ve gathered a selection of upcoming events from across time(zones) and space, and made sure there’s a little something for …Read More
Trapped in The Multiverse — What Should a Digital Burning Man Be?
The theme of “Multiverse” has, I think, been changed by the pandemic. Before, the Multiverse was something we aspired to experience. Now we are trapped in it — each of us stuck in our own little worlds, growing more and more distant from each other, unable to reach out. That’s really the theme now. But …Read MoreThe Burning Man Multiverse in 2020
After much listening, discussion, and careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision not to build Black Rock City in 2020. Given the painful reality of COVID-19, one of the greatest global challenges of our lifetimes, we believe this is the right thing to do. Yes, we are heartbroken. We know you are too. In …Read More
LAGI 2020 Fly Ranch Deadline Extended
We hope you are safe and healthy in these uncertain times. The fact is that everything has changed. The existential commitments that define us — to family, friends, career, creative expression, research, play, and exploration — have suddenly been jumbled together, competing for our time in ways that blur together the hours, days, and weeks. …Read More
Have We Been Training for This?
There are so many survival skills from taking part in the “Burning Man Immersion Learning Program” (a.k.a going to Black Rock City), which are coming in handy right now. But there is also a deeper, more important Burning Man training that we need to lean into. Like the ability to look at a situation and …Read More