Even before arriving at this year’s Burning Man Festival, I knew that my main interest would be the art of the “Burners.” But my wildest dreams could not have prepared me for what I encountered there. Since 1987, the festival has grown to attract more than 50,000 fire-loving participants who set up camp in a temporary site in the Nevada wastelands, approximately 140 miles from Reno, called Black Rock City. The site is arranged in a half-circle, on the dusty bed (called La Playa) of a dried-out mountain lake.
The Burning Man Festival is much more than a temporary community, however. It is a city in the desert dedicated to radical self-reliance, creative self-expression and surreal art. Innovative sculpture, strange installations, bizarre performances, otherworldly themes, wildly decorated cars and costumes all flower from La Playa and spread to different communities (regional Burning Man events) and back again every year.
clipped from: www.brooklynrail.org 
