08/01/2025
I'd like to introduce you to my 13th BRC Survival Guide. This year’s theme encourages us to envision the future that we want to see. For me that’s protecting the natural world, embracing human creativity, and celebrating native cultures.
Or put another way ... Im struggling to accept the present and the future scares the pants off me (we can talk about politics and war in a different post).
I poured my values and my angst in here. I dream of the past - not some artificial 1950s Beaver Cleaver recent past, but a primordial time before humans started mucking up the earth and each other.
I needed to represent as much diverse indigenous art as I could wrangle, collaged into the pages of the SG to honor non-Western arts and cultures. I sweated the blurry line between celebration and appropriation every day, and I hope that comes across.
The wonderful folks at Burning Man saw my human-less, future-less designs and gently nudged me to at least acknowledge the theme for my 80,000 friends in Black Rock City - so hidden among collaged images of indigenous art including ancient weavings from Peru, panted hides from North American tribes, landscapes and mythical creatures from the Middle East and Asia, are tiny futuristic cosmonauts that have landed on earth to usher in a hopeful age.
Let me know which hidden details and artifacts are your favorites - most meaningful, or most silly - and let me know if I'll see you out there.
Thank you for this creative opportunity, for my beautiful community, and for this public therapy session