Participation   Art

AfrikaBurn is primarily an ART festival, creating a temporary community based on radical self-expression and radical self-reliance in a non-commercial environment. Art is an absolutely vital part of this project. As such, think of AfrikaBurn as a blank canvas on which you can put anything you wish to. Think outside the confines of the art world, move away from the idea of reviews, sales or a relationship between an individual artist and an educated (consuming) elite. Think of the idiosyncratic, the personal, and a big wild, free, diverse and celebratory community. This is a free and positive art-making environment.
Art at AfrikaBurn can be everywhere and anywhere; generally though, our camping will be confined to one side of the property, in a half circle facing the Cedarberg mountains. The open area opposite the camping half circle, we are calling the binnekring. This is where most art installations are placed.

This is a free and positive, art-making environment. Anyone can display what they have created – at AfrikaBurn there is no judgment, competition or censorship. Most works at AfrikaBurn are created collaboratively with many untrained artists and people from all walks of life. This is an opportunity or platform for you to flex your creative muscles if you don’t necessarily do this in your everyday life.

Anyone making a commitment to creating art at AfrikaBurn must take responsibility for all aspects of that creation. From developing a dialogue with us, arrival at the site, protecting your art, cleanup and accountability. Art installations vary in size and complexity and can be placed in your campsite, on your body, on the entrance road (within the property) or in binnekring, around the inner circle according to their size and depending on whether they burn or not.

INTERACTIVITY: our challenge to you is to create something that is not just aesthetically pleasing but that will engage, inspire, question, amuse or just titillate the citizens of our temporary village. Think collectively, collaboratively, inclusively, of accessibility, humour and play, anything that grows community; art works that are meant to be hands-on, touched, climbed-on, played with, made to change over time. Interactive art convenes society around it and the shared experiences in art creation give it meaning and value.

the CHALLENGE OF THE ENVIRONMENT: this is an outdoor event 3 and a half hours drive out of Cape Town. Consider that your piece, or the loose components thereof, will have to be transported out to the Karoo, withstand whatever the weather might be and then either be removed or burned. Also consider where sound stages are situated in that area - ranging from a loud zone to a still and reflective area.

MATERIALS: If you are planning to burn your piece, please make sure that the materials you use do not have toxic substances in it, or on its surfaces that will release noxious fumes when burnt.
ART created from recycled waste materials and art which will burn during the course of the festival, or be reconstituted in a public space after the event is encouraged.

SAFETY: If your artwork is very tall, please make provision for anchoring it properly, so that it will withstand high winds or any kind of collisions that might occur. In this case please also make sure that you anchor points and guy ropes are well lit at night as well as “softened up”, cut tennis balls, dolls heads… whatever is going to make that piece of rebar sticking out of the ground more friendly so that it will not injure someone on their midnight wonderings.

LIGHTING: Make provision for lighting your piece at night - this is not only a safety issue, but a lot of activity goes on at night, and it would be sad to not be able to partake of your piece all hours of the day

ACCOUNTABILITY: We aim to leave our venue as close to the way we found it as possible (see leave no trace). Nothing should be left of your artwork or campsite after we leave, right down to the last stray false eyelash, tent peg, plastic packet or cigarette stompie, the Karoo must be left only with footprints maybe some disturbed earth and good memories.(see moop)

SET UP: If you have a very big installation, please consider or plan on coming to the venue earlier in the week to have it set up by Thursday the 22 April 2010, so that when the event starts you are not working all hours to set up your piece.

We urge individuals or groups of participants to submit proposals (a description and a sketch) for their art installations. Your artworks do not need to be “approved” (unless it is totally unsafe), so don’t hold off on creating what you wish to create, having an idea of what is coming to AfrikaBurn will allow us to allocate designated space on the binnekring for your piece (if that’s where you want it) but will also enable us to add it into our printed “who, what, where, when” directory that we will be handing out at the gate at AfrikaBurn.

PLEASE NOTE, THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT: if you have missed the deadline for art proposals and theme camps for AfrikaBurn, THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO BRING ART TO AFRIKABURN. By all means let your creative juices flow and bring your creations to Tankwa Town, it just means that you wont have a pre-allocated space and will not be included in the “what where when” booklet.