The phenomenon known as Burning Man is difficult to describe. It is an annual eight-day festival that draws 40,000 people to the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada during the heat of the Labour Day weekend to act out their dreams. They bring their art, costumes, food, shelter and gifts for others. There are no corporate sponsors, no unsightly logos. No money changes hands; people give, teach, go naked, and at the end of the week, they often burn the things they brought.
Insofar as Burning Man cannot be described easily, Roberts Creek artist Heather Conn has managed to capture a sense of the event in her photographs now on show at the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre in Sechelt. Maya on the Playa features photos taken at both the 2005 and 2006 Burning Man festivals. At her opening reception, she invited the public to dress up in silly outfits, much as they would do for the festival, and watch a rough cut of a video that a friend, Vancouver's Martin Prihoda, had prepared, Fear & Hope in Black Rock City.
Conn is an author, screenwriter, editor and photographer who likes to observe and compose scenes with an artist's eye. On this occasion, she had to learn differently.
"One of the primary philosophies of Burning Man is not to be an observer," she says, "but to be a participant. It was hard, as a photographer, to let go." The joy of the event is being in the moment. Once she grasped that concept, it became a life changing experience.Another big decision for the photographer was which camera to take. She had been warned about the fine alkaline dust that gets into everything, including expensive digital cameras. She decided to take her older Canon manual/automatic 35 mm and encased it in a hard, plastic covering. Using a bicycle (the Burning Man is spread out over a vast area of desert and cars are not invited), she and her camera toured some of the artworks that appeared for one week only, untitled and unmarked.
"This is a place where art is really honoured," she says. "There's a strong sense of public ownership of the art."
The results are clear, undoctored, high resolution images, some taken through a dust storm, that truly capture the moment. One photo, Get Me Jesus on the Line, depicts a phone booth in the middle of the desert. A sign says: "Talk to God." When visitors picked up the receiver, a live voice, by turns both male and female, would respond. Another photo, King for a Week, shows a majestic fellow in royal garb, with golden boots and carrying a gilded sceptre that looks suspiciously like a toilet plunger. Next to that photo is a picture of a giant artwork, a gory hand with two fingers severed, the same fingers that are commonly used to make the peace symbol. Conn calls the photo Peace Defiled.
The show continues until March 25 along with an exhibition by Vancouver photographer Florence Debeugny, Through. The images of her preferred sites - industrial neighbourhoods, back alleys, shipyards and scrap yards, are seen and interpreted through some other material, usually wire fencing.
The Arts Centre is open Wednesdays through Sundays. Phone 604-885-5412 for hours of opening.
