Back To Galleries

  Burning Man  
 
 

Burning Man
Raeford Dwyer

Each year, a week before Labor Day, high in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, on a prehistoric lake bed, a city of up to 50,000 residents materializes.  Black Rock City. Eight days later it vanishes, without a trace.

Essentially a celebration of art and an experiment in community, the Burning Man festival, is an expanding counter culture. The effects of this event have a global impact on culture, art and technology, year-round.

The gathering creates a civic society. It operates within local, state and federal laws, as well as adhering to it's own ten principles. They are: radical inclusion, gifting, decommodification, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leaving no trace, participation and immediacy.

www.burningman.com/whatisburningman/
about_burningman/principles.html

Burning Man operates a “gift economy” where in you pay for nothing, but give and receive much. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value.

The event is carefully designed to break the restraints of participants usual ideologies and return them to their true selves. It is intended to open their hearts and connect them back to each other. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to participate, contribute and express themselves to the fullest. 

It is necessary to bring everything needed for survival (food, water, shelter) in what can be a hostile, dusty environment. The participants must also pack up and take everything out again. 

The event includes an overwhelming collection of art and performance to enjoy, parties to dance at, bars and lounges to socialize in, lectures to hear, movies to watch, classes to take, conversations to have, and experiences to remember.