Burning Man 2019: Foamogenesis
This past Burning Man we had the pleasure of creating the staging backdrop for the Foam Camp. The indoor space is a bit of long story to explain, but suffice it to say, hundreds of people are there every day at the all day dance parties.
The backdrop and staging was modeled after Balinese gates with a giant banner of my painting, Molting, at the top center. Flanking it to the left and right were large lanterns that Violet made from paper, reeds, and mugwort sticks from the garden.
I designed the box facades in Illustrator and had them CNC cut. We then built boxes for them in our workshop, put the whole thing together, and then took it all apart, with each piece nicely labelled so that we could again put it together once we got to the playa.
The lanterns were the hardest thing to transport. They weigh nothing, obviously – being just paper and sticks – but they are very fragile. Luckily, they were packed snugly and carefully into the box truck. They were like chrysalises hanging from the ceiling and, along with Molting, worked with Burning Man’s theme of “Metamorphogenesis”
