Afrika Burns Festival (Oct 17-19th)

my friend doerte and i decided to try our luck at life in a parallel universe by heading to the afrika burns festival in the desert (a variation of the american-born "burning man").
here's what they have to say about themselves on the webpage:

Afrika Burns is a creative arts and freedom of expression festival that aims to build temporary community through collaborative arts projects, in a completely non-commercial environment.

This is a place to collaborate, cooperate, and add to the public environment. To build community. We want you to make a conscious decision to inject artistic sensibility into every daily activity: to invent the world anew; to generate a culture, a connective environment to be idealistic and celebratory. We want you to think of this gathering as an “invent” rather than an “event”. See this as an opportunity to reinvent the world and to foster art-making.

So our objective with Afrika Burns, is simply to create a blank canvas on which participants can project any creative endeavour that they desire to create; project aspects of themselves, collectively or individually; all of this in an environment not mediated or controlled by commercial enterprise.

flat tire in the desert? no problem...

this old fella was tickled to be gifted one of the hula hoops doerte & i made

my favorite structure - this psychadelic circle sphere

doerte checks in her ego at the "ego booth"

disgruntled postal service workers: billy, billy, & billy.

a homemade postcard :)

hiding from the sun in our ramshackle shade structure

i kid you not, there's a live human on the other end of the line...

all in all, it was a crazy and fun experience. i don't think the project is yet succeeding at making it a space that's comfortable to all africans - it was very much a white hippy event. but as i half-jokingly pointed out to doerte, if you're already living in conditions where you have a hard time getting water and adequate shelter on a daily basis, what draw is there in spending a few days in the desert? still, it was interesting to see the ways people let down their walls. i think i appreciate it even more now that i've been back in cape town for a while and am noticing how closed people are here to making new friends. and i got some recharging energy for crafting my performance in everyday life...