The Burning Man Project is a participatory theatrical event held in late summer in the Black Rock Desert of northern Nevada. Burning Man is about fire, water, firewater, survival, art, music, more music, fancy cars, strange theatre, and being a good camper. The organizers are from San Francisco, California.

The Black Rock Desert playa is an absolutely flat expanse of pale yellow, virtually sterile alkali clay rimmed by chocolate colored mountains many miles distant. Ten of us, friends from civil engineering school and others, created a "Free Mass Shower" for campers' relief from the desert heat. Our camp was located along the south edge of Black Rock City, the temporary community of the many thousands gathered for the event. We raised a hellish steel pyramid hung with orange devil dolls, black palms, and water spigots. A local farmer supplied a water truck, to which we rigged a pump to power the water spray.

After half a day of showering all comers with water, a huge mud pit began engulfing us. Hundreds of participants came to sit, wallow, swim, splash, slide, and wrestle naked in the playa mud, taking on the aspect of pale green goblins. Every hour or two in the afternoon we hosed everyone down with a cool spray of water. A ripping good time was had by all.

A tip of the cap to fellow campers Karl, Dave, Russ, Brad, Jess, Jason and friends, Craig from Texas, Liz, Erin/Zoe, and all the mudders muckers.

More pictures: [Note: Links are no longer active]

http://www.tribeofman.com/ -- Klaus Schoenwiese
http://www.networkimages.com/burning_man/bm18.html -- Maggie Hallahan
http://www.cea.berkeley.edu/~bboyd/bm/bm96-6.html -- Bill Boyd
http://www.3dculture.com/bm3d/bm3d96.htm -- Harold Baize
http://www.jvphoto.com/burning_man_6.html -- Jennifer Vermut (aka Absinthia)
http://monkey.hooked.net/monkey/m/hut/burnpix/ -- Alex Bennett
http://www.peterman.org/burn/burn96/sights/mud.html -- David Peterman
http://www.squarewave.com/lerner/bman/Burn96/burn96.html -- Steve Lerner
http://www.ankiewicz.com/photos/burningman/1996/playa2.html -- Kristin Ankiewicz
http://prometheus.frii.com/~bree/bman/ -- Bree Torkington