Whole Life Times: The Revolution Will Not Be Invoiced
Whole Life Times has this interesting article by Charles Shaw about Burners Without Borders and the unusual act of going to a place of need and just getting important work done sans red tape. Offshoots are abounding in other regional burner groups around the country and in the Green Man ‘07 pavilion project this year:
Whole Life Times: The Revolution Will Not Be Invoiced
Burners Without Borders is led only by an idea: that of a boundless, leaderless movement, based on gifting and community, that seeks no publicity, recognition, money or power. All it seeks to do, like its progenitor, is to build community through addressing social needs, creating art and healing the deep wounds of a disconnected culture in the throes of anomie.
“My personal philosophy,” Burners Without Borders co-founder Carmen Mauk intones, “is that this community is ready to do something more than just party. People are ready to make meaning of their Burning Man experience in their everyday lives. Whenever you bring that ethos off the Playa, that’s Burners Without Borders. And that’s precisely what happened in Mississippi.”
As a movement med by an idea, not ideology, Mauk and Price and the rest of the co-creators of Burners Without Borders are now watching their creation spread organically across the nation. In San Francisco, Mauk and fellow Burners worked with the National Park Service to rebuild the North Beach fire pits. In Detroit, Burners are building a Temple out of wrecked cars in order to spur economic development to blighted neighborhoods. Chicago Burners have performed in parades, taught art and recycling at high schools, and helped South Side neighborhoods deal with seasonal flooding by showing residents how to collect storm water by disconnecting their downspouts. Chicago’s Burning Man community also stepped up last April to provide the art and entertainment for the city’s inaugural Green Festival, bridging for the first time in any organized sense these two vanguard cultures. In New York, this July, Burners cleaned up Governor’s Island and staged an interactive public art show. During this year’s Cinco de Mayo, Burners in twenty-five cities got out and cleaned their public parks and beaches.
