A number of great things have emerged from lovesickness. For example the legendary Burning-Man-Festival, probably the most flamboyant cultural and musical festival in the Nevada desert, which has been attracting an increasing number of visitors since it began. The general rule is: your first Burning Man will definitely not be your last.
In 1986 Larry Harvey probably could not have envisaged that one day 70,000 people would visit his festival. It all began with a private beach party on Baker Beach in San Francisco, at the end of which he burnt a figure to rid himself of his lovesickness. It proved such an unforgettable evening that he staged the party again every year. In 1990 the beach party was so popular that over 500 people took part, by this stage the „Burning Man“ had reached a height of 12 metres. Too high for the local police, who banned the festival without further ado. A solution was close at hand: a change of location to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada and so the legendary Burning Man Festival was born. Since then the festival begins each year on the last Sunday in August and ends on the first Sunday in September.
A lived utopia
And so, seemingly from nothing, the legendary Black Rock City emerged, a temporary city, which becomes the hub of the world for 70,000 people of all shapes and sizes every year. One-man shows, visionaries, birds of paradise, hippies, performers, artists and completely normal people from all over the world meet here to celebrate a utopia far removed from commercial concepts and boundaries. Trying to describe the festival in the desert is like trying to explain colours to a blind man. Burning Man is unique in the world. A wonderful, bizarre microcosm, which leaves all thoughts of reality far behind. A world, in which money no longer plays a role, because the principle of exchange applies, where creativity, radical self-expression, love, tolerance and community is the foundation and where everyone can be what he wants to be. It is time out from normal life, where advertising and sponsoring are banned and it is immaterial who earns how much.
From another world
The festival cannot be topped for creativity. Spectacular installations, fantastic constructions, artistic structures and micro projects can be discovered everywhere and people make the festival a synthesis of the arts in their rococo costumes, as post-apocalyptic beings or futuristic creatures. The legendary Art Cars are the means of transport, works of art on four wheels in the shape of rockets, fire-spitting unicorns, pirate ships and many more and, of course, the bicycle, which is a must for the long stretches on the festival grounds. And at the end when the main protagonist „The Man“, a colossal wooden figure is burnt in the midst of all „Burners“, it is not only the most emotional moment in the week, but also the moment, in which the majority swears to return the following year.
Photos Copyrights: BLM Nevada
