Travel With Reason

[Black Rock City, Nevada] Among my favorite sights and sensations of Burning Man 2008 was one of the showpiece art installations, the Basura Sagrada temple. Each year at Burning Man, a temple is constructed as a work of art and architecture and memorial, where the festival participants (or “citizens,” now numbering about 50,000) leave inscriptions and mementos of loved ones lost. The temple, as with all of the art on display in this vast desert, comes and vanishes in a week. This spectacle, like the Burning Man itself, goes down in a blaze of glory and solemnity at week’s end.

Hard to imagine that this construction of recycled tin cans, bottle caps, wood and cardboard and wire can move one to tears (NOT attractive or comfortable while wearing swim goggles and face mask to ward off sandstorms!). But that’s exactly what this place did – much more moving, in its odd way, than the Taj Mahal that I visited exactly a year ago in Agra, India. Perhaps it’s the rawness, the immediacy, the wonder of it coming and going within the week, the instant and furious creation of community and its planned immolation?

We stumble on the site on Tuesday evening while still under construction – cranes lifted workers high in the air, doggedly putting on the finishing touches. We hear sandstorms earlier in the week had delayed things; but by Thursday, a second daytime visit finds the place complete and in full swing. Swarming with “burners,” as festival-goers are called, the structure had within 48 hours been filled with tens of thousands of heartfelt (and a few silly) inscriptions in marker, pencil and pen, and many mementos of loss, love, recovery, regret, covering every banister, stairstep, even the flapping wind chimes.

A few shrines have cropped up; photos are duct-taped to the wall; the odd stuffed animal is here or there. You take it all in as you wander, just as you would Cinderella’s Castle or any attraction at DisneyLand, but this place has meaning.  What do you do? Collapse from the collective impact of 20,000 expressions of grief? Or marvel at the contributions, the beauty, the legacy of all these friends and family who are remembered?

I leave an inscription, then sort of speechless, pause to meditate in one of the vestibules (not sure if that’s the right word but let’s go with it). There I meet and chat with Sergio, an Argentine, maybe 40 years old, who has traveled here for the week, to be moved by this place, take it all in, leave something behind. We each have come thousands of miles, we briefly connect (I share observations about the three months I lived in Buenos Aires, among other things), then we say goodbye and trek off across the desert, and eventually, back to the real world. Ah, life. People come and go so quickly here.

I visit a third time, biking across the plain on Saturday with my travel companion Tom, to find the place a bit more crowded, with visitors as well as remembrance. Again the place is alive. Then the winds pick up. Visibility at times becomes difficult. Even up close, the elaborate and beautiful recycled wind chimes become hazy and start to vanish in the sandstorm, and at times they whip wildly and create a magical, frenetic, industrial sort of song. Though you are standing on solid wood, the place does give off the vibes of a mirage, and the sound of the wind whipping through the silence of the visitors is magnetic.

I leave two more inscriptions, “we love you and miss you,” for Maria and Jose. Why not? I make one last stop on the second floor balcony to look out on an awesome scene. Against logic, sand striking me and my digital camera from all directions, I take photos of some of these irresistible and unearthly scenes. In particular, the view of the Burning Man “faithful” arriving to experience this temple strikes me as wondrous – people, bikes, portions of the site installation come in and out of view with the storm. “Please let this one photo turn out!” I think – just seconds before the lens freezes in place. Dammit! Though shooting is sacrificed for the remainder of the trip, the photo (below) did turn out, and I was able to un-jam the camera once home. Little miracles out of a place of harshness and wonder!

I flew home Sunday, in time to watch the streaming webcast of the ceremonial burning of the temple. A tiny, low-res, choppy video provides a ghostly final image of a place that briefly moved thousands, one last flickering glimpse of my first Burning Man experience.

Why create such a thing? I close this post with the philosophy of the creators of the temple, from their website (linked below):

“We build art out of trash for many reasons. Our goal is to make something amazing and exotic out of materials deemed unworthy, the stuff we throw away everyday. And while it is obvious that making something beautiful out of refuse is a political act, the question we hope to answer with this project is whether it can also be a spiritual act. We believe that it can.

“Basura Sagrada is a temple constructed entirely from burnable trash, recycled materials, and the tossed-off detritus of American society. Meticulously detailed, the temple will be a precious space created from non-precious materials. By replacing the gold and marble surfaces of traditional temples with aluminum can adornments and cardboard spires, we hope to inspire others to see everyday trash as beautiful, to save everyday trash and use it—not because it is responsible or right or necessary to recycle (although that is certainly important), but because people are excited about the materials and medium.

“We believe that the material itself has an inherent value that can be unlocked in the right hands. We will attempt to unlock unprecedented levels of beauty, and do it on a scale that will blow people’s minds and function as a sufficient vessel for the hopes, dreams, memories, and losses of our community. We welcome intrepid visitors to this space to be a part of this grand experiment in trash alchemy.”

Thanks to the amazing creators of this structure for their hard work and vision! Meanwhile, if you had the good luck to visit this place and have an impression or experience you want to share, please do it in the comments section below – thanks!

Links:
My Flickr photo set – Basura Sagrada.
The Basura Sagrada official site.
The official Burning Man site.

[Note: the above is not my sentiment, thank God,
but if I were in this state and able, I'd do it too!]

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