When Mikhail Bakhtin wrote Rabelais and His World, he didn't describe carnivals as entertainment, but rather a technology of transformation, a manifestation of ancient humanity
Carnival, he said, was the moment when the world remembers to be alive
Not metaphorically, actually socially, physically and spiritually
And by building Santo Cabrón and volunteering at Burning Man and regionals, we realized something important:
For many Latin Americans, Asians and Jews, this is nothing new
It feels familiar
It feels like reconnecting to our ancient traditions and our cultures abroad
Is not an escape. It is a return
"Welcome Home"
-- Greeters
Bakhtin described carnival as a liminal space, where hierarchy is suspended. During Carnival:
* The king becomes a servant
* The servant becomes a king
* The body becomes sacred
* The unfinished becomes beautiful
Fixation can become fluid again
This is why it feels liberating. Not because it creates something artificial, but by revealing a deeper, perhaps truer, layer that has been hiding beneath
Anthropologist Victor Turner called this state liminality in his book The Ritual Process the threshold where identity dissolves and reforms
Burning Man is a liminal city
And so is Latin America
Latin American Carnivals
When many Latinos arrive at Burning Man, they recognize something immediately
Not visually
Somatically
Because across Latin America, carnival is not a spectacle. It is infrastructure
Consider Carnaval de Barranquilla, for four days, the entire city becomes performance. There is no audience. Only participants. Many crews of dancers, builders, tailors and producers work year round to ensure the success of the event; with many corporate sponsors and city officials committed to having enough Old Par para todos
The official slogan says everything:
Quien lo vive es quien lo goza - Who lives it, enjoys it
Or Carnaval de Negros y Blancos, from Pasto, that celebrates nature, bio diversity, our indigenous roots and rewards the craftsmanship and productions of local builder crews
La feria de Cali, one of the multiple international salsa festivals that happen every year in the heavenly Santiago de Cali
Everyone is out in the streets, everyone's friends, high energy celebrations
From the audience to the queens, from sound engineers to bartenders, different important roles for the collective experience
Writer Gabriel García Márquez grew up inside this atmosphere. His magical realism wasn’t invention, it was crónica, journalism
In carnival cultures, reality itself is flexible
The boundary between creator and creation is thin
We think this is we keep seeing more and more latino camps, and latinos in volunteering roles at Burning Man; not because they were taught the principles
Because they were raised inside them
Laboratory
When theme camp leaders, art car builders and artists are conceptualizing projects they're usually considering interactivity
As such, we're continuing an ancient pattern:
The ritual of collective becoming
In Bakhtin’s terms, carnival celebrates the unfinished body, the body in transformation
The toy becoming creature
The visitor becoming creator
The observer becoming participant
Nothing is fixed
Everything is alive
This is why people are drawn to spaces where they can modify reality itself
Because modification is belonging
Psychedelics & Altered States of Mind
Adding to the mix, is very popular for people to drink and consume mind altering substances in potentially dangerous amounts
As known, psychedelics have been present in many indigenous traditions; Ayahuasca being widespread in the Andes, and psilocybin being introduced to westerners by a Mazateca María Sabina
Ravers, artists, and spiritual seekers alike seem drawn to these altered states of mind where they claim to receive special downloads from the sources beyond and peak behind the veil of propagandized reality
Some Burning Man philosophers claim that the event was inspired by the practice of psychomagic, a term coined by Alejandro Jodorowsky; a therapeutic technique that uses surrealistic, symbolic actions to heal psychological, emotional, and physical wounds by communicating directly with the unconscious mind
Is clear why many intuitively find that reducing their inhibition, and increasing hallucinations feels like a good idea; over the years, the people feeling inspired by these lessons have developed harm reduction techniques and departments to collaborate in safer experiences
Importance of Shared Rituals
Sociologist Émile Durkheim called this phenomenon collective effervescence
It happens when a group enters shared emotional synchronization
Dancing together
Building together
Witnessing transformation together
The individual dissolves temporarily into something larger
Not erased
Expanded
Because ritual accelerates social bonding beyond ordinary time
This is why strangers at Burning Man can feel like family in hours, this is why interactivity encourages group activities; there are no lines at Burning Man, just standing next to friends
This is why we have best friends that we only casually run into each once a year. This is why many ethnic groups conserve their rituals, and how their culture is transmitted thru generations
Jewish Rituals
For Jewish participants, Burning Man often feels strangely familiar too; and over the years we've seen many camps using kabalistic symbols, hosting Shabbat dinners; and portable sacred time
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote in The Sabbath:
“The Sabbath is a palace in time.”
Not a place, but a time in space
Every week, reality is reorganized
For practicing jews, all work stops, creating stops, presence and community are the purpose
This is structurally identical to burns, by creating a temporary autonomous zone where different rules govern existence
Rituals Change the World
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov taught:
“The whole world is a very narrow bridge, and the main thing is not to be afraid.”
Some interpret this bridge as the road from your current self, to the version you want. A liminal space is ideal for such transformation. A place where those transformations are expected is ideal for those transformation
Safely, playfully, collectively
Our history, our rituals, the principles, the rules that we establish for ourselves facilitate the door to this
Not because of some past nostalgia, real valuable shared experiences
This way we create the future, one by one
Is, of course, no secret that some participants are still at high risk of depression, unemployment and other societal illnesses. We don't pretend that these changes can happen immediately, some people need multiple visits to see beyond themselves and trace a path to the future
However, rituals can help you set goals, plans, excitement for the future; using it correctly it helps you plan your year ahead and motivate you to gather resources to be more generous every visit
Additionally, many burner communities are building mutual aid, harm reduction programs, civic engagement opportunities, small businesses, and other tools to help support each other better, and get those new selfs faster
Participation Matters
We're not just making art installations, any whomever can commission art and display it. We're building skills, muscle memory, cordiality, courage
We want to push each other past the limitations holding you back
We're a beautiful place, where people can:
* Stop being consumers
* Become creators
* Experience transformation directly
The toy lab becomes a symbolic womb
A place where identity can be disassembled and reassembled
Where instant friends become collaborators
Where hierarchy dissolves
Where the world becomes editable again
Diasporas
Members of diasporas are very familiar with these ideas as well; like latinos carry carnival Asians celebrate their lunar new year, las fallas de valencia; most immigrants and expats keep track of their rituals back home and find local groups with shared interests to celebrate and find a chosen family among strangers
Bakhtin believed carnival revealed truth, not an illusion
Many believe that psychedelics and liminality reveal reality
Many believe that we're all one, separated by arbitrary concerns
Perhaps reality is not fixed, perhaps many realities coexists
And our perception is decided collectively
The world is not something we enter, it is something we build, something we are