Fringe festival: desert offers a blank canvas for the creation of magic
AfrikaBurn is a fertile ground for invention, collaboration and playful fun, writes Struan Douglas
The Burning Man philosophy of action was founded in the US in 1986 with an annual event in the Nevada desert, which now attracts 70,000 people. AfrikaBurn was formed in 2007 as a nonprofit company to co-ordinate the local event. "AfrikaBurn is an open-source model. It is everybody’s town and it is defined by everybody," co-founder Monique Schiess explains. "It is idealistic. It is in a rough, difficult and incredibly beautiful space, the desert and you have to bring everything you need to survive, you have to gift something. Everyone who attends leaves utterly exhausted, but an activism is woken up in them. It is an exercise in self-organisation, which is amazing." The original founders of Burning Man were from the bohemian movement of San Francisco and acted from a basis of experimentation, play and idealism. A set of principles, built around "radical self-reliance" arose out of practice and action. And they were written down to define the event. AfrikaBurn founders include Robert ...
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