The Solar Shrine Collective
The Solar Shrine Collective is a group that builds transformative community-based art projects.
Pillar of Po Tolo Project - Burning Man 2025
Transforming the Way African Sacred Science is Experienced
Chicago, IL, US
The Pillar of Po Tolo is an interactive art installation for Burning Man 2025 that pays homage to the ancient cosmology and spiritual beliefs of the Dogon people of Mali in West Africa. The sculpture transmits their knowledge of astronomy and sacred science through petroglyphs, symbols, and other indigenous aesthetics.
The philosophy of the installation is to manifest the Dogon people’s mythologies and metaphysical realities. Central to their cosmology is that the Sky God Amma created the first living being named Nommo that transformed and multiplied. They believe the Nommos were inhabitants of a world circling the brightest star in the sky Sirius. They were the great civilizers that came to set up society on Earth. They teach that Po Tolo, the companion star in the Sirius star system, is of the most significance with its egg-shaped orbit. Sirius has been an important star for many cultures since ancient times. However, it was not until 1862 that an astronomer observed Sirius as a binary star system with the aid of a telescope.
One of our main project goals for Pillar of Po Tolo is to educate attendees at Burning Man and others after the event at various venues that African art and architecture are forms of technology. They may not be bits and bytes but are spiritual science. Africans, like other cultural groups around the world have traditional practices that engage with shrines and structures to connect with other states of being, consciousness, and other dimensions of realities. The installation integrates the ethnography of the Dogon people with archetypes from our modern collective unconscious such as terminal interfaces from our computer age. We want viewers to question what is technology and how do they experience it, interact with it, and are impacted by it both spiritually and physically in contemporary realities.
The philosophy of the installation is to manifest the Dogon people’s mythologies and metaphysical realities. Central to their cosmology is that the Sky God Amma created the first living being named Nommo that transformed and multiplied. They believe the Nommos were inhabitants of a world circling the brightest star in the sky Sirius. They were the great civilizers that came to set up society on Earth. They teach that Po Tolo, the companion star in the Sirius star system, is of the most significance with its egg-shaped orbit. Sirius has been an important star for many cultures since ancient times. However, it was not until 1862 that an astronomer observed Sirius as a binary star system with the aid of a telescope.
One of our main project goals for Pillar of Po Tolo is to educate attendees at Burning Man and others after the event at various venues that African art and architecture are forms of technology. They may not be bits and bytes but are spiritual science. Africans, like other cultural groups around the world have traditional practices that engage with shrines and structures to connect with other states of being, consciousness, and other dimensions of realities. The installation integrates the ethnography of the Dogon people with archetypes from our modern collective unconscious such as terminal interfaces from our computer age. We want viewers to question what is technology and how do they experience it, interact with it, and are impacted by it both spiritually and physically in contemporary realities.