Creativity Untethered at Burning Man

Por um escritor misterioso

Last updated 03 abril 2025

I count myself incredibly lucky to have been able to tour to Burning Man thanks to the good graces and coordination of the Reno Arts Commission, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and Burning Man itself. I was part of a group that primarily consisted of mayors and their staffs from across the country, as well as Nora Halpern, my colleague here at Americans for the Arts, and Mary Anne Carter and Tom Simplot from the National Endowment for the Arts. We were there to experience first-hand the deep community nature of Burning Man; the ways that art, creativity, expression, and culture are solidly integrated into every aspect of the event; and the complex undergirding that makes it all possible. There is freedom in coming to a temporary city to transform yourself into a different, freer version of you. That freedom exists in the way people dress, the way they act, the art they make. It is creativity untethered—70,000 people rolling back all of the strictures that keep us who we are in the day-to-day.