Burning Man

Every year thousands of ‘burners’, from all over the world, gather at Black Rock City in the Nevada Desert for The Burning Man Event: 8 days living as one huge community embodying radical self-expression, gifting and self-reliance.  After getting a taste of this amazing experience at Afrika Burn earlier this year I decided to join James on another adventure into the desert…

It’s safe to say that, if you haven’t visited Burning Man before, you will spend 8 days being ‘wowed’. I was first blown away by the sheer size of the space. Afrika Burn was pretty big but the expanse of ‘playa’ that Black Rock City occupies is something else entirely. To give some context: Glastonbury festival is considered to be pretty large at 900 acres (500 football pitches). Burning man is over 5 times the size at nearly 5000 acres (3000 football pitches). For that reason it’s absolutely essential to bring a ‘burner bike’ to get around (an offroad bike which you revamp with lights, sparkles, fur and anything else you can think of). 

Then there’s the setting of the whole place. Black Rock City sits on the ‘playa’ in the Nevada Desert about 150 miles north of Reno. There’s no wonder that one of the principles of The Event is Radical Self Reliance – during the day the temperature frequently reaches 35 – 40 celsius but can plummet during the night to single digits and it’s even gone below freezing in the past. Then there’s the dust. The dust gets EVERYWHERE. In your tent, in your clothes, in your food. It’s important to take goggles and some kind of balaclava / facemask with you as, when the wind picks up, you need to be able to cover up. We had 1 dust storm during the week where we literally couldn’t see 10 feet in front of us and had to hide under an art installation until it passed (although this did make for some epic photos). 

The next wow for me was the Art. There are hundreds of Art Installations scattered across the playa and ‘deep playa’. You could honestly spend the whole week just exploring them. My favourite art installation was this huge mini village / tower structure called ‘The Folly’. One night we heard live music playing as we passed and we went in to take a look. There were hundreds of people gathered in the middle and up on the towers singing and dancing along to a one man improvised song writer! He would choose words from the audience and make up entire songs and riffs with them for us to all singalong to. 

But one of the most magical parts of the whole experience are the principles of radical gifting and radical inclusion. The whole event is put on by the people who attend it. James and I were in a 70 person camp called ‘Bubbles and Bass’ and our gift was to throw sunrise champagne parties every morning of the burn. So from 6am to midday our dance floor would open, our DJ’s would start playing and our lovely Champagne Fairies would keep everyone well hydrated. 

My gift to the burn was photography – capturing the beautiful moments shared between the incredible people that we met over the course of the burn. For me it felt like everywhere I looked I found magic; the wild and wonderful outfits, the amazing artwork, all set in this otherworldly backdrop with a sprinkle of playa dust.

Before I went, James described Burning Man to me like this: “Imagine Mad Max had a baby with a Unicorn and that baby went to live on mars with 70,000 of it’s most creative and equally crazy friends. That’s about as close as I can get.”

I don’t think he’s far off. But, personally, i’ve found that, at both Burning Man and Africa Burn, it’s been the people that have made it. The art, the location the parties and the scale and magnificence of these events make them unique and incredible in their own right. But the community, culture and the amazing people I met, both in passing ones as well as the friends i’ve made for life, are the reason these events are so special.

I hope you enjoy looking through some of my ‘Burn’ imagery!