Second Landing

Art grants, letters lying on the ground, an army tent and the first Ukrainian art car in Black Rock City.

Art of the year

AI.TLants

The second year brought art. Ukraine's Ministry of Information Policy offered small grants for projects at Burning Man, and Kurenivka put forward artist Oleksandra Stepanenko and a group of artists with an idea about artificial intelligence, years before everyone was talking about it: AI.TLants, a set of Atlantes.

The plan was to cast the figures in polymer on site. The molds didn't fit the suitcases, then they did, then the cast wouldn't release. On the playa the team changed course, and Oleksii Tronchuk welded the Atlantes from metal, almost single-handedly.

Burning Man art placement map with green stickers, including labels for AI.TLants and Sorry

Photo: the Atlantes on the playa

Art of the year

Sorry

It was the year Burning Man's founder Larry Harvey died. Artist Oleksiy Sai came with a much bigger project in mind, a tunnel of lamps, but the grant covered only the lamps. They became one word: Sorry.

The letters lay flat on the playa. Looking at them, Sai decided that next time his letters would stand, and they did.

Sorry by Oleksiy Sai, glowing letters in the dark

The camp

A whole village

The camp grew. Zhenya and Valya Zasutskiy gave it a real army tent. Khrystia and her friend Marina brought the first Ukrainian art car to Black Rock City and parked it at Kurenivka, and campers rode it all week. From the air you can see the whole village: yurts, kitchen, bathhouse, tents.

All that infrastructure took its toll, and the build crew finished exhausted. The lounge tent stood empty most of the week; not building it would have given everyone a day off. It was the year Kurenivka learned that more is not always better.