You could be forgiven for thinking that Burning Man is just a party…a fantastical amazing mind-blowing party. It is a whole lot more than that. The Burning Man festival grew out of loose grouping of individuals and organizations who questioned, and continue to question mainstream, highly commercialised society and what it does to the notion and workings of community. Burning Man’s mission statement states:
“Our intention is to generate society that connects each individual to his or her creative powers, to participation in community, to the larger realm of civic life, and to the even greater world of nature that exists beyond society”.
As an official Burning Man regional event, Afrika Burns embraces and aims to embody the principles that have guided Burning Man and the community and ethos that has grown around it. Please read these and keep them in mind when planning your participation in the event.
- COMMUNAL EFFORT
Our community values creative cooperation and collaboration. We strive to produce, promote and protect social networks, public spaces, works of art, and methods of communication that support such interaction.
- PARTICIPATION
Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic. We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve being through doing. Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play. We make the world real through actions that open the heart.
- CIVIC RESPONSIBILITY
We value civil society. Community members who organize events should assume responsibility for public welfare and endeavour to communicate civic responsibilities to participants. They must also assume responsibility for conducting events in accordance with national and local laws.
- IMMEDIACY
Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture. We seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves, the reality of those around us, participation in society, and contact with a natural world exceeding human powers. No idea can substitute for this experience.
- DECOMMODIFICATION
In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience.
- GIFTING
We are devoted to acts of gift giving. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value.
- LEAVING NO TRACE
Our community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves and endeavour, whenever possible, to leave such places in a better state than when we found them.
More info on burning here
- RADICAL INCLUSION
Anyone may be a part of Afrika Burns. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community. This means that anyone can partake.
- RADICAL SELF-RELIANCE
Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise and rely on his or her inner resources.
- RADICAL SELF-EXPRESSION
Radical self-expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual. No one other than the individual or a collaborating group can determine its content. It is offered as a gift to others. In this spirit, the giver should respect the rights and liberties of the recipient.
Like Burning Man, Afrika Burns aims to be radically inclusive, we hope that its meaning is potentially accessible to anyone. The touchstone of value in our culture will always be immediacy: experience before theory, moral relationships before politics, survival before services, roles before jobs, embodied ritual before symbolism, work before vested interest, participant support before sponsorship. We hope that the ideas in the principles will become a way of life for those who have experienced them spawning independence, initiative, creative expression.
There will be nothing for sale at the event, no vendors, no advertising, not even a barter economy. The gift economy is about giving of oneself without expecting anything in return. Try it, it is truly fulfilling. Please bring everything that you will need to survive, shelter, food and water and a free spirit.
top |
