"THEM" A Burning Man Art Piece

"THEM" is a mostly wood structure with a series of five climbable prisms that make up sets of facial features (neck, mouth, eyes, eyebrows, and headpiece) that make up multiple faces in a tower form. At night there will be internal lights casting long shadows of the faces onto the desert floor.

"THEM" invites participants to enter and identify with the art-making the sculpture into THEM. Through community interactions and the people around us can the sculpture be transformed into new faces. At night those new faces are then expressed upon the playa in shadows created from an internal light. To explore the different personalities of "THEM", one must generate commitment as part of the change, and this participation can be done alone but it is much easier to do with the support of a community. The sculpture will act as a meeting point for observation, contemplation, and self-discovery.

Additionally, we have partnered with Circle of Light which is an art installation first debuted on World AIDS day at San Francisco AIDS Memorial Grove created by Ollie Newth. This ring of lights was created to remember the lives we lost and continue to lose to HIV/AIDS and will surround the tower and provide protection to the art piece in the form of light as those who fought and died before we did for our community. These lights will illuminate THEM physically and symbolically honoring our queer past while proving visibility to our queer future.

The art piece itself represents non-binary queer people. Designed by a queer Latino Artist Simon Malvaez and fabricated and constructed but a fully queer team led by queer artist Brenden Blaine Darby, this project is meant to show that all genders are welcome and celebrated at Burning Man.