I returned to Springboard recently from my trek to the Burning Man Festival in Black Rock City, NV, where I’ve headed every year for the last decade. Since my return I've been getting caught up in the rigors of my many tasks in the office, but the staff here has been on me to blog about my experiences there. To be honest, it felt a little bizarre to be asked to blog about my vacation on behalf of my workplace, especially about such a now infamously counter-cultural event. But, it does remind me that, at the end of the day (and a very long and dusty drive), I went from one innovative and creative environment built by and for artists, to another.

One of the best short summaries of what Burning Man is all about that I’ve read is here. Even if you’ve heard of the event, or have participated in it and know first hand what it’s all about, it’s a good read. Black Rock City and all it is is a very difficult thing to summarize, but to me, Burning Man above all else is a community. It’s a community of thousands of artists and other creative thinkers with one of the largest blank canvases in the world. And for the nearly 50,000 people that attend the event, there are nearly 50,000 different (and valid) ways to use it.

Here are a few.

"The Man"

SOMA, close up

SOMA, distance

Wedge

Gothic Raygun Rocket

Dusty


Red Caly!

Photos by Cali Mastny and Rubin Abdi

-Caly

# posted by Springboard for the Arts @ 12:18 PM