Burning Man Live

Burning Man illuminates so much of the greatest aspects of human behavior. But also for me in particular Burning Man is not just like an answer, but more importantly, an open question, a question that asks “What is our human nature? How is human nature expressed under different conditions?” And once you understand that, what do we really want to preserve, and what do we want to enhance in the world? ~Isabel Behncke

It’s really trust-based. I would say that’s the one factor that separates Borderland from a lot of other Burns, organizations in general, the general level of trust between members is very high, and it’s designed that way. It’s very, in that sense, risk-taking, but I wouldn’t say it’s taking a risk because it works really well. It also creates resiliency because there’s so much also loyalty among the members, and the actual belief that their opinion matters. And then you get so much good will and so much buy-in from the community.

To decide that you want to do Burning Man still, despite the complexities of it all, to decide that that’s where you want to invest your time, your energy, your savings, that’s all super, super recognized. And I think it pays off, right? There’s so much joy that comes out of it. And it’s really an antidote to kind of all the things that are going on in the world right now. So thank you for being here. Thank you for showing up in the dust and building the city together. ~Level, Head of Placement

“Burning Man is just like going to Las Vegas on Mars. You have to learn how to live on Mars first before you enjoy the parties. It’s survival first, party second… The Burning Man org learned we have to have toilets, roads, and support systems. NASA probably should learn from you guys.”

“The art that’s out at Burning Man, there’s no other place on the planet for it. And I tell people — this is my tagline for Burning Man — It’s the most creative place on the planet, for a week. Wouldn’t you want to go there? I think I want to go to the most creative place on the planet, and experience a planetary event like that. This is a planetary thing. This is not a San Francisco thing or an Austin thing. It’s a world wide global thing.”

As artists, the reason we build big things is to bring in the community. So for us, the community-building and making things accessible is just really at the foundation of most of our projects. We just have an interest in removing barriers for other artists. ~MJ Brovold

“Just going to Burning Man for so long, I have a very weird and interesting and funny experience at Burning Man, because you don’t have to be me to get to talk to a lot of strangers, but it certainly makes it weirder!” ~Mark Day

“You better watch out You better watch out You better watch out You better watch out…”  ~Santas at Portland SantaCon ’96

“It’s like the time of the year when everybody’s working on projects and you’re sharing information, energy, know-how, with all the other communities that are there, and with the sole intention of going out and sharing. And you get excited like, oh, so what are they building? And what are we building? And we’re part of a bigger community of people that are doing things to share with other people.” ~Michael Christian