EP 59 Kim Cook

Episode 58 with Kim Cook is out now! Meet Kim Cook, a longtime leader within the Burning Man organization who discusses the global evolution of the event’s culture. Cook details her transition from a "Burning Man adjacent" background in the arts to senior roles such as Director of Art and Civic Engagement, Director of Creative Initiatives, and Director of Global Activation, where she worked to bridge the gap between the desert festival and the wider world. A primary theme of the conversation is the porous definition of a "Burner" as She argues that the community’s core ethos of creative expression and mutual trust exists far beyond the physical boundaries of Black Rock City. She highlights her work on diverse initiatives, including collaborations with institutions like the Smithsonian and the launch of a virtual burn during the pandemic, to illustrate how the movement’s principles are increasingly decentralized. Her story is a reflection on cultural legacy and resilience, emphasizing that the meaningful connections formed through shared practice are more enduring than the temporary physical structures built in the desert.

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Transcript

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They make the trick out to Burning Man for a week and a day. After a lot of work, oh, there's a lot of play. Party party, drama, drama, drama. b****, b****, b****. Year after year, they come back to scratch that itch. They all say their lives have been changed. After many years, lives have been rearranged. That changes what this show is all about. You'll see the impact. of burning up and out. So sit back, relax, and cancel all your plans. These are the stories about the shadow of the man. 

Hello and welcome to the Shadow of the Man Show. I'm your host, Andi. That the Clown? No, That Andy. Today our guest is Kim Cook. And so Kim, so um You just retired for being was it the the senior director of global activation? Was that your your title?

Yes.

So what exactly is global activation? What what was your job? You did that for 10 years, right?

Well, I did three jobs at Burning Man. I was the director of art and civic engagement for the first four years. Then I was the director of creative initiatives for another four years. And then two years as the senior director global activation. Global activation really is almost like a placeholder to speak to the thing that moves me greatly, which is how Burning Man filters out into the world and sort of intersects with other contexts in ways that are organic and meaningful on both sides. So, you know, the words are almost um arbitrary. You could say activation, you could say engagement, you could say,

you know, joyful friendship, right? It's like it's this this matter of um really connecting and understanding that while Black Rockck City is emblematically and symbolically important to many and for many it's that's it like you do that and that's Burning Man to them. But in many other ways what it represents and what people have learned in 40 years of going to the desert has meaning and applicability uh across the world and in some cases that's networks of the you know that are officially connected to Burning Man project the regional contact system the regional event leads burners without borders then there's some that I would still call networks even though it's maybe not officially referred to that way but theme camp leaders, mutant vehicle creators, artists, rangers, you know. So there there really it is a a a global system ofworked people who are connected by this idea of Burning Man, which probably means something different to everybody, but universally represents a sort of freedom of expression and a desire to engage constructively within community. And so my job was to interface there, right? So whether that was um the European leadership summit and the regional contacts there or burners without borders or partnerships with the Smithsonian or Chadzsworth House or the United States Institute of Peace and then on Playa in the last since 2019 I've been art directing the man. Uh so the way that the pavilion is developed and the art activation and a sense of plays, benches, lights, that kind of stuff. That's been me and a bunch of other people who care fiercely and ferociously about it and were kind enough to give me room to play with them. So, the whole the the man like pavilion, I mean, is that with an eye towards like uh like the connection to like the outside world too or or is it just just kind of

No, I think because I I came in in many ways as the most senior art person you know, uh, and when we lost Larry in 2018, Larry Harvey had been exclusively working with people he loved and trusted to collaborate and develop the theme and to develop the experience at the man each year. So after he was gone, we had the wonderful Stuart Mangram writing the theme and many of the same people that had worked with Larry But Larry had really, you know, sort of ruled by fiat in terms of what it was he wanted the man to be. And so we got together, Marian, the CEO, and a number of the founders and uh Opa, who you may have known and um who we lost

passed recently, right? Yeah.

And uh and we talked about an approach that we ended up deciding would be comp comprised of a group of artists designing concepts and then all of us deciding together which concept to develop and build. And so I have been putting together the list of artists that we would ask in discussion with many other people including Katie Hazard from the art department and people who are sort of formed a stakeholder group and then sort of take it and run with it from there and and make it into a fully ized experience. So I just got lucky in a way because first I was the director of art and civic engagement then I was the director of creative initiatives and that's when I you know I started working on the man really at the very end of when I was the director of art and civic engagement and I just held it after that. So even though my job changed that piece because when I started I was in charge of all art all fire all pyro everything on plya and a bunch of other stuff too and community events and grant making and burners without borders and the regional network and so on and so on. And

so it it I didn't want to lose an authentic connection to the heart of the city and the the I didn't just want to be a hanger on on ply it right I wanted to have a work function and to be a part of a team the honor and opportunity to continue to work on the man with people who are passionately committed to their much longer than mine history, you know, 30 years or more in most cases. So, in some ways, I was the art director and in other ways I was really more a facilitator of a group of people who all cared deeply about the end result.

So, how did how did this all begin? I mean, like did you just get into Burning Man like okay now I'm the art director like what was the first year like what was your first experience of Burning Man like and how did how did you

My first experience of Burning Man depends on where you start the clock and what you call an experience of Burning Man so if you think Black Rock City is Burning Man

then there's one story but I would say my first experience of Burning Man is that I'm a Bay Area native you know and Berkeley Oakland, San Francisco, and I was running a theater in San Francisco in the late 90s and it didn't have any air conditioning. It was like an old warehouse space. And um so in the summer, we couldn't really do a whole lot, but we had big space, and so people could build big art there. So, you know, I had burners making art in that theater. Huh.

What was the name of the theater?

Artto. Oh, okay.

And uh and I had a board member who went out to Burning Man and he came back and he's like, "I spent the week on a trailer with a fig leaf and it was awesome. You should come." And I was like,

"Sounds enticing."

Just my thing.

This is like late 90s, you said.

Yeah, mid late 90s. And I um I got clean and so in 1988. So I was a little alarmed about that thing in the desert

and then I lived across country in Philly and New Orleans, Washington DC. So I wasn't as near to it. I kind of figured I would go at some point. I like to say it's like you have, you know, relatives that have a family reunion that you know eventually you're going to go to, you know, and uh I had the guy who was my hair stylist in Philadelphia. Surell, he and his husband would go out, come out to California every year, buy a janky car, go to Burning Man with their friends. Um, when I was in New Orleans, I started a festival called Luna Fett, Light Up Nola Arts, and um, all the burners came out and then they all wanted to meet me because it it spoke to the kinds of things that Burning Man and so then the next year I had a Burning Man art named Jen Leuen there which who is just an incredible artist and friend. So then so I was the president of the arts council for the city of New Orleans and my both of my parents died within about you know eight months of each other and I I had expected that my dad would die while I was in New Orleans. I had not anticipated that my mom would die

and I just felt really like I needed to come home and I wrote a few friends and I said it's time for me to come home. I wrote to Bamui who Mark Bamui Joseph who was working at Yerba Boa Center for the Arts at the time. I wrote to my friend Sarah Croll and I wrote who was at Destiny Art Center and I wrote to my friend Garfield Bird who was the CFO of Wikipdia Foundation and Garfield sent me the job description for Burning Man, director of art and civic engagement. and he said, "I was holding on to this. I knew there was somebody that I should send this to." And so he sent it to me and um I was like, "Wow, they have like an office burning man, you know, and it said that you had to be a burner to be eligible to apply." But I went ahead and applied and the recruiter interviewed me and I made the case that like that I was Burning Man adjacent for a long time, you know?

Yeah. And The same community that birthed Burning Man had birthed me creatively and that I was always surrounded by Burning Man and in fact I was informed in a way that a burner may not be about the impact that Burning Man was having in the world and what it had to offered the world.

Unique experience there. Yeah. Yeah.

And um when you interview at Bernie man you have to do a lot of interviewing. Now one of the things I did

was I flew myself out to the Bay Area without telling them that I was doing it in order to meet them, but just saying to the recruiter, I was like, "Hey, you know, I'm going to be in the bay if anybody wants to see me." Because I wanted to overcome the hurdle of flying me in to interview.

Yeah.

And so that got me my first round of interview. I mean, I'm not sure what got me my first, but that's when I did my first round of interviews. And I will tell you, it was on my birthday, August 6, and I had done the weekend before a chakra clearing retreat. and I got really sick. So apparently I had a bunch of toxins in my chakras. I could barely crawl across the floor. So when I went for that first round of interviews, which was kind of an all day thing, I hired a car. This is kind of Lyft and Uber weren't that big a thing back then, just even 10 years, 11 years ago. And I paid for the car to wait for me outside. And then so you think it was going to be that long?

No, I just knew that I was really weak.

Oh,

yeah. And uh and then when I got done and back to the hotel, like they wheelchaired me back to my room. So I was very committed. So anyways, that got me through the first round and then there was I think another round and then I had to come to play. So my first experience of Burning Man that we think think of as Burning Man was four days on Playa as a job interview.

Well, so what what year was this that you were like applying?

2015.

2015. And that was the first year we went to Burning Man, too.

Yes.

Wow.

Oh my goodness. And I mean to tell you asking yourself the question when you're in New Orleans of like, what do you wear for a job interview at Burning Man? Burning Man.

Wow. anything you want or nothing at all. Right.

Right. And uh I mean fortunately New Orleans is a costumeuming kind of town. So

yeah.

Uh

they might tell you that you're overdressed, you know.

No, I didn't do overdressed. I did kind of like plaid pants but big jewelry.

I'm trying to think. It's like what would be an inappropriate job interview attire on the Playa? Like khakis at a polo. Right.

Like a suit.

No, I guess unless you really did it, you know, ironically.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's it's funny because like what you're talking about like this whole experience of being a burner. Um I just had on a couple of weeks ago um Debbie Mansour. Uh and so she she's um from like back east. She works with helps out with like the portal, cosmic burn, stuff like that. And so one of the parts of my show is like uh is the whole concept of you know like what what is a burner anyway you like so like as I was talking about that show like in like in 1990 when when there was like 80 people first went to the playa literally quite literally like 100% of them came from San Francisco right just definitionally like you know and then like over years as more people came and you know people came from farther and farther away you know it's like well okay now people coming from far And then so now like there's there's regionals all over the planet, right? So my main question is like like if you've been to some like a regional burn for like 8 years and then then you go to the playa for for three years. It's like are you like an 11-year burner, you know?

Oh, for sure.

Yeah. Right. And then like another question is like the whole like the VR thing which is like well I've been doing like you know Black Rockck VR for a couple like I mean it can kind of like start going down this road of like what what exactly Does it mean to be a burner, you know, like in in the Burning Man culture? And I mean, I could understand for like applying for like a a job for Burning Man, you know, like like like an art director job. I mean, maybe DPW. I mean, not no shade on DPW or something, but you know, it's like they probably want someone with direct experience of Black Rockck City, you know.

I think it really depends. And, you know, um, so I was never actually the art director of Birdie Man. I had those other titles that I've said before, worked on the man, but

the um you know, in the years I've been employing people to report to me, whether as a you know, CEO or executive director or as a program leader, there's something to be said for experience and then there's something to be said for the quality of the person where you know it doesn't really matter what you need them to do because they can bring whatever you need to the table and you can train them the rest. So, for example, when I was the president of the arts council for the city of New Orleans and I needed a deputy director, I uh outlined what I needed somebody with grant writing experience, somebody with operational experience, somebody with budgeting, and then I met this guy named Nick Stillman who was a sports writer and an art critic for a New York magazine. in a sports critic in New Orleans and he had also taught art history at a local college. I think it was at the University of New Orleans. And I met him through his wife who's a curator and a really wonderful person, his wife at the time. He's also now married to a different extremely wonderful woman that I know. And um she was like just, you know, could you meet my husband? He's looking for work. And I met And I knew in an instant, even though he'd never written a grant, even though he had not done budgets, you know, that he didn't look like what I thought I wanted, I knew he was the right person. And I knew it from certain things like he said, he couldn't abide a pile of paper in a corner. And the way I inherited the arts council is we had a lot of corners with papers and various excess in them.

He said that um and then his because I was new and that there were people there who had been there for a long time. I could tell that Nick could enter the culture of that office without feeling threatening to people and that people would want to work with him. And so it was really the qualities of Nick as a human, not the things that I officially wanted him to have or be. And I think we've seen that at Burning Man, too, where there are people who just um belong as a part of the ex you know our world and the what they've whether they've were burners before or not they sort of are burners right

so and then do you mind if I take this in a related direction to what you

sure yeah yeah

so in 2020 we have the pandemic and by the end of that year Harley K. Dubois and Marian Goodell had been in conversations with Sabes. Basically, they their board member Fab Five Freddy had gone over to Sthabes and said, "You guys do charitable auctions. You should do one for Burning Man." Because, you know, we were burning through our reserves to retain the staff um and the practice, which was very smart because it's a very particular set of skills that people have that you know, Marian was clear she wanted to keep them employed and so I got handed the role of producer curator for this auction with Seth. Now a lot of people had a lot of mixed feelings about Sabe's big exclusive brand what they mean and represent in the world and we had just witnessed the you know murder of George Floyd and the rise the uprising in the streets

and I was like well if we're going to do the auction with Sabes, then it has to be anti-racist, right? And um we have to be clear about an inclusive and extensive reach. Burning Man does not classically have a lot of artists of color, nor does it actually have in many ways a lot of women. Like some of our best known artists are predominantly men, although we have excellent women artists and I could rattle off names for 10 minutes probably. So with that intention, I I needed to go beyond what someone would think of as a Burning Man artist, someone in Black Rock City, or I wasn't going to have a well balanced portfolio of artists. And so we ended up with 164 artists, 49% women, 39% artists of the global south, artists of color

and many of whom had never been to playa. So the way I applied this idea of are you a burner is were you living in a way that was authentic to the principles and ethos of burning man? And what I found in artists from Mexico, artists from Lebanon, artists from uh East Africa, South Africa is that they absolutely knew what Burning Man was, but they didn't have the ability to secure the visas, the plane tickets, the tickets to Burning Man and other things. So, it was emblematic of something about freedom and personal expression to them that was deeply symbolically meaningful. And for me, that qualified them as burners, if you will.

Yeah.

You know, maybe quasi burners, maybe not to a burner who really has been going to the Black Crock Desert forever and ever. But in terms of the definition for this, you know, this uh experience and you know, we we had 164 artists as I mentioned and we you know, funneled about $900,000 out to this artist and Sabes keeps the auction of all the artists who sold, they take down the ones who didn't sell, but you know, permanently. So all those artists, most of them, like 90% of them had never been sold in that kind of setting.

So they also it gave them like a new credential. And I got a lot of letters from women like a Japanese Mexican woman and a woman from Ghana who were saying that some of the artists who were in the auction with them were artists they had learned about in school and so it meant like this really big honorific to them. So you know I know one of your questions is how does Burning Man impact me and for me I feel like Burning Man has a mountain of knowledge assets of practice that have benefit and applicability far beyond the circumference of the 80,000 people that go to the desert

and I want the broader world to benefit from what burners do and know in their practice. Not just the 10 principles, but really, you know, ritual and welcoming the the novice and,

you know, not letting not knowing stand in the way of doing and all those good things, too.

Yeah. Well, a couple of things that just kind of struck out to me like it's just the whole idea of, oh, maybe you haven't been to burning man, but you you could still be a burner, you know, like the whole cacophony idea of just it's like you may already be a member.

Yes. Yes. I love that so much.

Yeah. Yeah. And then the other thing is like um I mean I can understand the uh you hear the name Sipbean just like oh Bernie man's selling out you know but but like you said it's like there there's there's two sides to like every coin right you know. So it's like you know you're you're giving people from far-flung places who might not have h ever have had an opportunity like this. It's like an incredible opportunity of of a lifetime, you know, like

So, was that the only time that ever happened or is this

just a one-off and we survived it? People were worried again like you just said about the sellout and everything, but we we survived it. And you know, you also talked about the virtual burn. So, I produced the virtual burn in 2020

for Burning Men. Had partnerships with nine tech partners. We had a new CTO at Birdie Man, Steven Blumenfeld, phenomenal human and Gloria Beck from the arts team and I and one other person, you know, the four of us produced this together. I was the lead and uh one of the things that happened was Burners Without Borders arranged that people who were in refugee camps were able to talk to people from Burning Man, like they were able to share experiences from totally different context and educate each other. And then like some of the um one of the partners were their experience was sort of zoom hopping rooms with with graphic interfaces and they did things like they had a session with a blind photographer explaining how a sense of place and sound and other stimuli um you know prompted the photos that he took and then cited people describing what they were seeing and other people without sight both hearing the photographer and the cited people description of the photos and like that is a really imaginative way to bring people together. Now these very same people also did a hot tub party and had somebody a man shaving his legs with uh fishnet stockings on. Uh so you know everybody joined in. Yeah. You know so

the imagination and playfulness across a big wide range you know like or there was a woman who told me that she and her sister had made a pact long ago that they would go to Burning Man and that they had not but that her sister was dying of cancer in Chicago. And so the way they were going to go to Burning man together was through the virtual burn.

Ah,

at some point the question of whether someone's a burner or not becomes irrelevant,

right? And it's more like how are we connecting? And I think Burning Man

in all its permutations at heart makes these really incredible connections.

I mean, I guess you could say it's its own culture, right?

I think it is a cultural movement now. I'm fascinated. I've spent a fair amount of time in the hip-hop community. I spent a fair amount of time in the Cuban Roomba and cultural community and so on and so on. And you know, I also used to live not too far from a racetrack and I would go I've never been to a horse race, but I've been at dawn to when they breeze the horses and they have cheap but wholesome hearty food in the K, the racetrack kitchen for anyone, it's usually like $6 or $8. And you know, the managers and the trainers and the jockeyies are really the only people there. And you can watch and see how much of a culture there is there. So, there's lots of spaces, cultural spaces, and and the and the boundaries can be porous in terms of who's inside and who's outside. And yes, there is an absolute culture and being aware of when you're a visitor to a culture and learning about the norms of that culture and not, you know, presuming that you know what's best or better when you enter into a culture. You know, it's a it's a privilege to participate. And so I don't even know if I'm a burner, but I know that You know, I've done what I can to be in service to this idea of what is a burner.

Well, I think the whole idea concept has probably evolved over time, right? I mean, in like 1990 when the the zone trip number four and like 80 people got they come back and you could probably legitimately say it's like I was one of these 80 people, you know? I mean, it's it's like we're the few, we're the proud, but now trying to remember like uh We're like doing some numbers. I think it's somewhere upwards of like a million people have been either to Black Rockck City or to one of the regionals at like at least once.

Yeah, I think that's a reasonable speculation. I mean,

in 2024, more than 100,000 people went to regional burns. That's more than went to Black Rockck City.

Mhm.

And yearover-year Birdie Man has about 35% new people.

So, you start to do that math and you're for sure you hit a million pretty quickly I think.

Yeah. And that's just people who've attended, right? I mean we're talking about like adjacent people. I mean that could be a couple of times more than that.

Yeah. Yeah.

So do you think that um I know that for 2020 to raise money they did the whole SB auction thing, but it seems like almost like that's a that's an excellent opportunity, you know, for for global artists or you know to kind of spread the Burning Man ethos. house or whatever. I mean any any concept of doing that again or

I don't think not with Sabes but I don't know because I won't be there.

Yeah.

But you know I've done projects with the Smithsonian American Art Museum Renwick Gallery. I've done projects with the United States Institute of Peace. I've done projects with Chadzsworth House in England where 556,000 people in 6 months came to see art across a thousand acre landscape for free. And none of them really knew what Birding Man was and they were like, "What is this culture? Where did this come from?" And you know, the the artists, four of the works were commissioned and so one was built with local rock from a quarry and now sits outside the Barkca Engles group uh headquarters in Copenhagen. Three of the other ones were made with school children and volunteers and we had a burn on the on the British land. Cape, which is really funny cuz it's so moist there that they just didn't really worry about embercast, you know, and we were all like, "Oh my gosh, you're very casual about your fire." And uh so there are many ways I've been privileged, the city of San Jose, Office of Cultural Affairs, and others where, you know, people have heard me say this at the office a lot recently because I've been trying to like leave behind like if remember nothing else. Remember that the object in and of itself does not convey the culture. It's the people who do. And so all of our partnerships have included sort of activation strategies with volunteer training with um ways to interact with the artwork as one does on Playa.

Um the the you know in Chadzsworth there of the 12 artworks I can tell you how those pieces connect to the history and mythology of that place. Like we really think not only about what Burning Man is bringing to the table, but about the context that we're entering.

So I don't, you know, while Burning Man doesn't officially pursue these kinds of things, I would imagine that there will continue to be important opportunities to share and learn with other um entities. these institutions and cultural movements and I think that's healthy sharing.

Yeah. I mean not just from Burning Man project but also probably like from the regional groups too like individually.

Yes. A good example of that is in 2017 the Hermitage um museum in Norfolk, Virginia had an exhibition of Burning Man art and artists and they got very engaged with the regionals and then the regionals grew locally and then they got more money for interactive public art in Norfol, Virginia, etc., etc. So, yeah, there's this way that one little spark, speaking of Hebercast, you know, can turn into a bigger engagement in a local area. And you're right, I think that the regionals and burners without borders are such an important and powerful vehicle in their own context, in their own communities of creating exceptional experiences. Really?

Yeah. I mean, what kind of help does uh Bernie band project like offer like the regionals, you know, like um you know, say like somewhere in Arizona like, oh, you know, we're going to be part of this like arts festival. We want to do this thing or whatever. I mean, uh are they I mean, I'm sure they're not like looking for permission, you know, but I mean like what kind of help could uh

well, we have extraordinary humans. in that area. Iris Yei is the head of the regional contact network.

Stephen Raspa is a part of the regional event leads team and then they have some colleagues that work with them. And you know I think one of the things Burning Man is trying to decipher right now is how to be less centralized around Burning Man project and more capable of creating systems that make for poorest transparent peer-to-peer engagement

because you know when Burning Man became a nonprofit and it named its mission as extending the culture from the desert out into the world I would say that now it's more about facilitate and support like the extending has happened

and there's as much reciprocal benefit between Burning Man project the organization and those regional partners as you know that goes both ways right like there's as much for the the central organization to learn

from the regionals as there is for the central organization to provide service but there are agreements in place you do make certain commitments if you become an official regional event and that includes being a 10 principal event, an all ages event, um transparent financials, that kind of thing. And the Burning Man project team does along with volunteers, um the regional events committee like they provide conflict resolution support, they provide uh handbooks and tools for you know how to really build an event. They provide mentoring and guidance and support. and connection to others, you know, and so this is a moment where Bernie man is re-evaluating its role and how um the regional system wants to be in relationship to Burning Man project. So there's been a couple of years of a project called 25 to thrive thinking about there's been a regional system for 25 years. What does another 25 years look like and how like the whole thing sort of be re-engineered in a way that catches up to where we are now.

Yeah. Yeah. Cuz another thing that's just been flitting across my mind is like there's there's official like regional network like regional contacts like sanctioned events and then and then there's kind of I guess like adjacent sort of things or or I guess you could think of things like like Love Burn or something where it's like it it was official but now it's not. And and I'm sure there's like groups of people who are like, well, we're just, you know, we we don't want to be in an official thing, but they're still like within the sphere, you know.

Yeah. You know, you asked earlier you or you said something about is Burning Man a culture? And I think this is a really fascinating moment to look at late 20th century movements and how they're translating into mid 21st century. Right? By the time we get 25 years from now and it's 2050, right? We'll be halfway into the 21st century and the founders and legacy holders of late 20th century movements are unlikely to still be around

and so you know I've watched as you know because I've also done a years of consulting with the nonprofit finance fund on strategy and um sustainability with organizations across the country with their boards of directors and executive directors and so on. And you know, it's not unusual for people to be operating with systems that were built for conditions that no longer exist. So there's this way of reimagining. And I feel that's true in technology, it's true in hip-hop, it's true for Burning Man, it's true for psychedelic science people. Like things are not as they were,

you know, 20 years ago, much less 40 and how we all think as leaders moving into, you know, the era we're in and beyond will take thoughtful re-engagement. And I I you know, I love John Powell, who's the head of the othering and belonging institute, who contends that um which is out of UC Berkeley, by the way, but um he contends that most that the word world's problems could be tracked back to a sense of othering, making people be the other.

Yeah.

And that most of the world's problems, if not all, could be solved through a practice of belonging. So these questions about are they in or are they out or official or unofficial? These things may become less relevant as we all find the ways in which we connect and belong. We which is really going to be essential for a peaceful world which I think you know if we don't find a way to do that then we certainly have an existential crisis as a planet.

Oh yeah. Well I always thought like for me personally and kind of part of the guiding principle of this entire show like I always thought like the the main business of if we could say B business of of Burning Man is is connection. You know it's it's bringing people together through whatever means you know, but who are separated by like by distance, by time, by culture, by you know, any manner of things that we divide each other and, you know, you kind of break down those barriers and and we get to like the bedrock, you know, it's like, well, you know, I'm a human being, you're a human being, like let's let's create some art and let let's just connect and and be together. And I I've always thought it's like, you know, that's like the the great gift that Bernie man can kind of give to the the world. And Yeah. I mean I mean whatever like structures we come up with you know like it's official or not official or you know like applying like standards I mean like yeah I mean I think like the the bedrock behind it all is is is our connection.

I agree. I also think we have to consider you know what I talk about as sort of the balance between risk and trust you know so

what puts the culture at risk and needs to be thought about carefully and what is it what creates trust so we can let go and let our successors carry on you know and sort of there's it's fairly straightforward to enumerate risk associated with financial or even liability it's harder to enumerate when it comes to culture

you know and Recently, a woman from the Modern Elder Academy last year was talking about years ago when she worked in a restaurant and they had a uniform t-shirt, but they had liberty in terms of how they might tear or cut or embellish the t-shirt and what they might wear it with. And it was this sense of camaraderie and team around this freedom with their t-shirt that when a new owner took over the restaurant and made them all wear the t-shirt in exactly the same conforming way eroded the sense of camaraderie and common culture across the staff. Now, who would have thought that t-shirts made all the difference in how something runs? And so, these are the things like when you think about Burning Man, it's often proudly announced the way we do the perimeter fence with people still pounding stakes when there are machines that could go around and just, you know, pound the shakes stakes. with much less human effort required. But then you lose the team sense of of

building this perimeter fence together which sets a tone for what comes after. So

yeah,

this is the it it's it's less important who's in or who's out and more important to understand the practices we want to preserve without getting locked and rigid around it. Mhm.

But the things that we know will will help this opportunity to connect carry on.

Yeah. Love that. All right. Um, so where does uh this all begin for you? Like where did you grow up? We said you have you always lived in the Bay Area? Is that where you grew up?

I am the daughter of a geoysicist who was a woman in Clovis, California, who got accepted to Stanford out of high school and her father said that good girls from small towns don't go away. So instead, she got married to my father and had two babies at 19 and 21 and was an art major and a French horn player and a mother before she realized that she was married to an alcoholic and she was unhappy and she left her small town with the U-Haul, her two daughters, and moved to Berkeley and enrolled in physics because she'd been reading um Scientific American, I think, magazine and thought physics seemed interesting.

And then she eventually um did her PhD there and then a five-year posttock at Caltech and then she moved to Santa Cruz and founded the Charles Richter Laboratory. So, I grew up in this really interesting culturally diverse community of young students from UC Berkeley, uh, anti-war protests and, uh, food cooperatives like the food conspiracy. You know, I was around when the cheese board first started.

What's that?

Oh, it's in North Berkeley. You'll have to check it out sometime.

And it's a fresh bread and lots of cheese and pizza now, actually.

And so, the it was a very dynamic and actually I wrote a book if you don't mind me telling you.

Oh, of course.

Um, so I'll show you the cover. It's called What Remains is Love, 55 Letters to My Mother. And this is a photo of my mom and my sister and me on the front of it.

And you know, I grew up with this really incredible dichotomy between this mother who was incredibly intellectual, incredibly, you know, c creative and interested in an international sensibility and would take us to hear organ concerts at the you know Palace of American uh or the Palace of Fine Arts and um at the other hand she was unavailable. Our house was really chaotic. There was some violence and some other less um nurturing elements. And so my sister and I both had this really passionate relationship with this with our mother that was uh difficult but it also pushed me out into the world. So you know I was always a little dancer and I loved the rhythm and the beat and you know and so I had a neighbor from she was west uh she was East African but she was a West African dancer. My auntie Namura I learned to dance with her and then my neighbor Donna became a belly dancer training with um

uh this woman who was really well regarded in the belly dance world. And you know, uh, then that took me to the drums, which took me to Sprout Plaza where these incredible drummers like Bill Summers and John Santos and others were, you know, Taji and um, were, you know, Butch Hannes were like playing like really great drummers. Like a lot of times now you go and it's just people kind of beating on drums, but back then there's like Pier Or like really phenomenal John

um Johnny Otus who's the son of a famous jazz musician like really incredible people and I started learning to like clap clave and dance Roma to the drums and you know and so on and so on and so on right like it was one incredible exploration and because my home environment was unstable the this the geography of the Bay Area became the parent in a way for me like it became where my attack ment was and where I got my nurturing was largely in African diaspora community and you know red beans and rice and if it was Puerto Ricans black beans but um yeah and and so while I have a creative practice as a writer, a showmaker, a festival generator, creator and so on, I also got to a place where I knew I need needed to learn more about access to capital and how the economics of the cultural sector worked given that our cultural assets were so rich and our you know organizations for the most part were so destitute.

So you know I did a lot of things to to develop my acumen in that area. A fellowship at the Kennedy Center for 10 months in strategic management classes in financial accounting accounting and so on and so on and that led me to working for the nonprofit finance fund and doing a lot of work in the arts and culture sector around sustainability. So I have this sort of you know two sides to me the side of me that loves to be a cultural strategist and to think about how we incorporate aesthetics and kinesthetics and you know somatic experience into the world around us to make a kinder gentler, more beautiful and good for our nervous system world and to support a broad sense of you know what is an artist? This is probably back to that a burner not a burner you know I don't so much care about those questions an artist not an artist like a creative an innovator a community you know enabler like it's like really important that we maintain humanity um in public spaces and I think that happens a lot through art and cultural practice. And then the other part of me that also wants to dance for you or make a show or write a book. And so I I try to navigate both sides of that. And you started off by saying that I retired from Burning Man. And I don't really use the word retired at all. Like I don't ever expect to stop working. I did have to step away from Burning Man because I felt there was more for me and more in to learn and ways to grow. And now I'll find out what that's going to be.

Yeah, I was actually one of the questions in top of mind was like, yeah, what now? Like uh what's what's your what are your thoughts? What are your plans or dreams?

Well, one is to trust that the future will info unfold, right? It'll it'll become clear because Burning Man is so immersive, as they might say, right? Like it's so all-encompassing that I finally realized that I needed to make space in my life in order to find out what was next in my life and to be the person that I am now and be curious about what's ahead because I had life-threatening cancer in 2023

tumor in my brain and I was very like I love my life I want to go back to my life I don't want to be changed by cancer that's a cliche but it does change you It really does.

Oh yeah.

Changes everything.

Including really teaching me to let love in even further because people rose up. You know, 20 people came and stayed with me when I had to go for treatment away from home

on rotation to help me make my bed or go to the doctor or try to eat something or bring me a little art project. You know, my friend Brody

Brody Scotland who works at Birdie Man in the art department. She would come over and she would bring me like, "Here's some clay. What would you like to make with clay?" And I could do it for about 10 minutes and then I had to go lay down for about 45 minutes and then I would get up for 10 minutes, you know? So, my sense of love, my sense of my inner self,

um my sense of gratitude, but also a sense of really changed person. I need to spend some time with that human and how can what I am able to do who I am now be useful in the cultural sector that I love so much.

The very first thing I'm doing is I'm going to Sweden for three weeks and I'm spending

a week in the circus community there. I'm spending a week in the forest with some sculptors and then I'm spending a couple days in a small town on a river where somebody I know is directing an opera. So, I'm really taking myself out of my day today to reset um in the cold and beautiful landscape of Sweden. So,

are you going to go there like now? We're recording this on January 31st. I was thinking it's like, oh, maybe springtime or

No, no, I'm leaving on February 8th.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

And I have a certificate in circus dramaty from the French and Belgian National Circus Schools.

So, I really love making shows. I really love making shows. And so, I think, you know, eight days seeing shows and talking to circus professionals will be a really good

uh nourishing experience. And then uh Christina Sparang and Christian Rristtow are actually artists I know through Burning Man that are sculptors that moved

from Taos, New Mexico to Lund, Sweden, just outside of Malmo a few years ago. And so they've renovated a farmhouse and out buildings and you know they weld and forge and sculpt and do their thing

and their son Kodiak who must be 12 I think by now does also

uh the all those things

and uh one day somebody asked him the difference between welding and forging and he got this really scoffing look on his face like are you an idiot these things are very different he was like 10 or eight or something like that so um but I'll have some quiet and some beauty around me and I love that I love that. So, and then, you know, if a friend, even a new friend, is directing an opera, I think a person should go and see it. So, that's what I'm doing. Yeah.

It'll be all in Swedish, but then who understands opera anyway?

Well, it's all beautiful.

Yeah, it'll be great.

Yeah. Wonder if D.Va Marica can sw sing in in Swedish. I don't know.

Uh Yeah. And then I have a I have another book coming coming out that later this spring about recovery called Left Foot Right Foot. And then I've been working with an incredible street dancer um choreographer named Lorenzo Harris, usually referred to as Renie, out of Philadelphia, and it's his autobiography, but it's also a history of street dance and hiphop. Um he was on the first run DMC Freshfest tour as a dancer in the way back. Um he has two honorary PhD he choreographs for Ay. Um, and so I'm working with him to complete his book and get that out this year as well. And and then, you know, we'll see what I know so many wonderful people. I I can only imagine what kind of serendipity and synergy is ahead for me.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't think it's unique to the Burning Man world, but it's just kind of like this idea of just sort of throwing yourself like off that cliff or just like into this the the cultural stream and just be like let's see where it takes me, you know, and it just I don't know. I I mean like I I would have very little fear, right? It because it's just like I mean I I've made connections and I have friends and it's like you know there's like way points along the way, you know, it's like oh I'm going to stay with so and so and and like wow.

I have a healthy regard for the risk involved, you know.

Well, yeah. Risk and trust, right? Yeah.

Yeah. I have I I know the period of time that my savings will be you know what I can fall back on and when I should start to really be concerned and we'll just Yes. But I you know I've often said that I don't know if I'm Icorus or the daring lady on the flying trapeze but as it turns out the Icarus myth has never happened to me. And even when something approximating that has happened I have found the lessons and the learning and the growing

exactly

to serve me.

And so my friend Scott down in New Orleans who used to be the head of the cultural uh economy there with Mitch Landrew. I don't remember Scott's last name right. Scott Hutcherson. Uh he said to me once that we know we are resilient. So whatever happens we know we will be okay.

Mhm. Mh.

And so I think if we're not overly uh defined by how we think success or life looks like, um, you know, we can we can be all right taking those flights off of cliffs without quite knowing if we can fly.

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

And if we don't, then something can calcify and become less than healthy in my case. I have to make room for growth and learning.

Yeah. Yeah. So, you don't want to get set in your ways. Oified. I mean, it's kind of a when not unique to Burning Man, but you know, like, yeah, take some risks, evol evolve, try something new, radical self-expression, right? I mean, this uh Yeah. So, yeah. So, how have Has Burning Man impacted you and influenced you? Cuz you you said like uh you first became aware of it like in the mid to late 90s, but then your you know first trip to the play was what 2015 and that's it's a good long year of like percolating around.

I love Burning Man and I would say there are simple ways that Burning Man has impacted me that seem small or trivial but when I travel I have a flashlight.

Huh?

You know What's that talk about radical self-reliance? You know, if you're in an unfamiliar place and you're out after dark and you, you know, you need to see your way or need to see the keypad on your Airbnb door lock or whatever, you know, it's just good to have it. In the back of my car, I have scissors, duct tape, and toilet paper along with the normal, you know, uh, air tire pressure thing or whatever. Uh, because once I had my car broken into and I cut up a yoga mat and used some uh duct tape to seal it up until I could get it fixed, you know. So, there's this way that

we have small habits that I think come from the preparation for playa

um that translate over into other ways of being that just are about preparation. My attraction to working for Burning Man was as much about my many years in grassroots community and wanting to understand like how do these epic things get built in the desert? Like what is going on there? Or if the tech community truly is there and all these entrepreneurs, what will a new wave of philanthropy look like when you know the Entreneurs expect social entrepreneurism and healthy measures of success and are not necessarily going to be philanthropic in the ways that were done in the past. And so how might I observe that which didn't turn out? I didn't meet rich people. So too bad for me on that one. But or if I did, that's not the point, right? That's not right. But

I was attracted to this idea that Burning Man had cultivated pract inside of a mostly tight bubble that maybe could benefit others. And so what I found is that there were many ways that my natural way of being was in harmony with what you know burners do.

Mhm.

And are and be which is funny cuz again we get to that are you or aren't you a burner? Are you inside or outside? You know and the cacophony society. You may already be a member.

Yeah.

So, you know, witnessing the ways in which Burning Man observes a threshold, which is a really important concept to me. Like, you know, we may refer to it as liinal space, but like for example, when I was really sick, my sister would come over and she'd be like, "Okay, what do you need? Do you need your dishes done, your trash?" And I'd be it was way too much for me. I was like, "Could you just sit down and hold my hand for a little bit? before you do the stuff, you know? So, that's a threshold moment, right? Like when you shift from where you were to where you're headed with a kind of acknowledgment that you're crossing through a portal and Burning Man does that with greeters,

you know. Um,

yeah, exactly.

And so, and then the value of ritual, which is of course like as long as humans have been doing stuff, they've been building ritual practice. And so, you look at the lamp lighters and those kinds of things. Or, you know, if I go to an alcoholic, if I go to a recovery meeting and I acknowledge out loud that like I am a whatever the whatever

um this is a form of ritual acknowledgement. And so, you know, and and then this really splendid thing that you already referred to earlier is that anyone can create. So, you get people who come out to the desert and do not identify themselves as artists at all, but they will go back and think up something they're going to bring next year.

Yeah.

You know, and uh for some people that's a gunball machine. Like one a really really cute artwork from about probably six or seven maybe more years ago was called in case a uke and it was like a sort of faximile of one of those things that you see in office buildings like in case of fire break in case of emergency break and take out the axe or the you know foam or whatever fire retardant and um in this case it looked like one of those things but you could get in it and take out a ukulele. So it's like in case of emergency you can play a ukulele. So you know this kind of another word I've really come to use a lot lately paracity this porous membrane, this way in which you can flow in and out of spaces and and make something whimsical or you know

one year there was an artist named Dan Sullivan who had this really ambitious project and he didn't get it really completed and built. I think it was called Katakoma Veils but I don't know for sure until maybe Wednesday or Thursday of the I think Thursday and then it had to burn sort of the next day or something like that. And one could say like, "Oh, he failed because he didn't get it done at the start of the event and then he had to burn it." Blah, blah, blah. Didn't do all the things he hoped he would do. Except if you went to any of the team dinners when they were building this thing, if you went any time to that build site, there was so much camaraderie and so much goodwill because of the way Dan leads and facilitates a community. that I don't think the art had anything to do with it except as a device for bringing I mean it did have something to do with it and I loved it and I'm glad that he did get it done.

So like the art wasn't really the finished product but like the process to get there

precisely

and so Burning Man's impact around process over product is profound.

Oh yeah. Yeah. And I just I don't I just coming up this whole idea of like Bernie man and Like I know people keep thinking of like oh what what is a burner? What is not a burner? It's like that's kind of like an exclusionary kind of idea. Like I don't know. I think it's just like the DNA of Burny Man is more just inclusive. Like the whole like cacophony idea of like you may already be a member. It's just like it's like let's start with the presumption that you are a member.

Yes.

You know

and then you can always take yourself out if it's not agreeable to you.

Yes. If you ask yourself if you're a partner, you probably probably are.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Um, anything else? Let's see. Think we hit all the questions. So, you had a book that you wrote about your mom. So, what remains is love? 55 letters to my mom. And then you have another book coming out, Left Foot, Right Foot.

Yes.

Uh, I mean,

the 55 letters to my mother, my mother wouldn't speak to me when she died. And so there was a lot of grief to work through. And then about five years later, I was like, "Oh, my mom is inside of me. She she can't leave or not leave me. She's a part of who I am." And I see her everywhere. So I started writing her letters like I was running into her. And then when I finished the letters, I was like, "Oh, this is actually pretty good writing." And so I found an editor and a book designer and I dug up a bunch of old photos and I and I rearranged the letters a little bit from the order I wrote them in. And I, you know, it's a book about Berkeley in the late 60s and 70s. It's a book about mothers and daughters. It's a book about intergenerational trauma because I'm like, I say, you know, my grandfather beat my grandmother and my mother and my mother beat me. But my grandfather was also raised by someone that people called the meanest man in town and he came from Denmark in 1899, broke horses for the cable cars when horses pulled the cable cars in San Francisco, won some money in a poker game, came to the Central Valley and started farming with his wife and his mother. So, he probably didn't have it that easy either, you know. So, it's like we really um the book really is this loving book. That's why what remains is love. It's not me working out my garbage. It's me sharing the pleasure

that awareness and empathy brings with time.

Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean something always emerges, you know, from any kind of conflration or firing. There's always something to to to to take away with.

And isn't that so potent about burning men as well, right? It points to the ephemererality of things and the lasting result of things. Like when I the first year I went out to play at as a worker. Of course, as a worker, you go out quite early. There's really nothing out on the desert. One or two things or whatever. And my friend Megan Miller started pointing to there's this, there's that, there's this, and there was nothing there. But she had been going for so long that her place memory, you know, the poetics of that space were as alive for her as if the structures were there.

And so, I think Burning Man, a part of its gift is it creates

uh somewhere out of nowhere you know, and and that lives on inside of us and we can tolerate the change and the femorality because it still resides within us, you know.

Oh, yeah. And kind of like when I was talking about the whole like, you know, graduated thing, you know? I mean, you people come to Burning Man, they learn these lessons and take them into the outside world and it's like it's not not the end, you know? I mean, I'm sure there's probably a a minority of people who look at it as some like, oh, I'm going to this festival, you know, like like one and done. Chop like that off the bucket list, you you know, whatever. But, um,

no, I've heard people say, the first year I went to Burning Man and the second year I did Burning Man, like I I helped make it like you don't want to just go, you want to be a part of it.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure there's plenty of people Yeah. who think of it as just like a destination or a thing to do or a thing to check off and then they get there and they're like, "Oh, this is what it's about."

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Well, um about an hour and 10 minutes now. Uh anything else? Any final thoughts or

No, I just appreciate your thoughtful curiosity and warm welcome. Thank you.

Oh, thanks. Yeah, I mean the whole concept of my show is and part of it is like uh I' I've you know, I've known a number of people through the Brady Man world over the years, but it's like I've just not really knowing their backstory, you know, just know you like meet someone on the play and you hang out with them, you're like, "Oh, you're so close." And like you you might not see them for the rest of the year, but you know, you see them for like a week like once and then but it's like, "Well, I know nothing about them, you know,

which means you know everything that's important about them."

Yeah. Yeah. But also, you know, like as Birdie man's what, like 40 years old now or something, right? Right.

And humans are fascinating. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And just, you know, it's like we're all kind of getting older and I mean there there's always a new group of 20, 30omes kind of coming in and um I don't know. And then like some people like um trying to remember someone who just like recently passed away. Uh what's his name? I forot now. The lighting guy you're talking about.

OA. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then also

decades.

Yeah. Like kam kamicazi Kelly. I know like he this whole like he's has like lung cancer and he's going to pass away soon and you know I was like I was like I tried to get a hold of him I was like oh let's just do an interview you know but I don't know he's occupied um but you know just to record some of these stories before you know it's too late for some people you know but also just for every like there is no one story of Brady Band like they're all everyone has like a different facet or a piece of the pie you know, like I don't know. That's that's what it's all about, you know.

Beautiful.

All right. Well, thank you so much for the interview.

Thank you for your time. I appreciate it.

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