NEW YORK, Jan 30 — The annual late-summer festival brings thousands of people together in Nevada to create Black Rock City, a temporary metropolis dedicated to community, art, self-expression and self-reliance.
Organisers of Burning Man recently announced that Colorado-based architect Renzo Verbeck and artist Sylvia Adrienne Lisse were selected to design a temple for the 2020 edition.
The pavilion, called Empyrean, will notably be set on fire on the last night of the festival along with the namesake “burning man” itself and other installations built in Black Rock City.
The Empyrean temple will comprise eight angular pavilions that will be arranged to form a star shape, with the entire construction measuring 70 feet at its highest point and 200 feet in diameter.
The canopies will form the sanctuary of the temple, with celestial cutouts designed across the structure to place offerings in the apertures.
Wooden panelling will allow sunlight to filter inside the pavilions during the day, while light will radiate from the interior outwards at night.
A large wooden sculpture hosting an artificial light, called the Empyrean Flame, will hover above the central gathering space of the star-shaped temple, which is intended to be visible from all directions of Back Rock City.
Flagpoles will be set up at several of the access points of the monumental structure, onto which festival revellers will be able to write messages and prayers that will be set in motion by the wind.
“The Temple is a subtle and humble beacon that radiates at an indescribable magnitude. It offers a safe, neutral place that can facilitate powerful healing.... I aim to create interactive heART, art from within the heart, that serves to help others find their own healing,” artist Sylvia Adrienne Lisse said of the project in a statement.
Funded by donations, the Empyrean temple will be built with the help of volunteers. Organisers of Burning Man 2020 have also launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for its construction, which has been budgeted at US$320,000 (RM1.3 million).
The 2020 edition of Burning Man will take place from August 30 to September 7 in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. — AFP-Relaxnews
