[Will & Kate] (0:00 - 0:33)

Burners of New Zealand, Australia and Asia, Radically making magic on the paddock around the fire, B-O-N-Z-A-A-R, Bonzaar Podcast.

[Stevan] (0:33 - 1:11)

A beautiful bonzaar welcome to everyone out there listening. I'm Silent Disco on the Paddock and we're here to talk about art. So we'll need a panel of burners who has built art and also talked about it at a fireside chat on Paddock at Centre Camp on Saturday 1pm. That talk wasn't recorded.

So in this episode, we'll do a take two of that scenario and welcome to this group therapy session. We have Bea, Lumos, Simon and Myke on this Artery panel talk. We will also discuss what we experienced at Pilot Burn, also known as Pivot Burn, process some of our thoughts and emotions and end with a review and conversations on the Bonza Summit weekend.

So welcome to the panel, Lumos, Bea, Simon and Myke. Hi everyone.

[Bea] (1:12 - 1:12)

Hey.

[Simon] (1:12 - 1:12)

Hello.

[Lumos] (1:13 - 1:13)

Hey.

[Stevan] (1:13 - 1:26)

So, um, how are things going?

We should get some quick introductions and then some burner origin stories, I think. So shall we start with you Bea? Let's, uh, what's, what's your contributions to the burn community?

[Bea] (1:26 - 1:57)

Sure. Hello. Hi everyone.

I'm also known as Creatrix and as Miss Peaches. Uh, I've been around the burner scene since around 2019. So Burning Seed 2019 was my first burn.

And since then I stepped up to become art lead for Burning Seed 2022-23, art lead for third degree 23 to 25 and back to art lead for seed again this year for Pilot Burn. So it's pretty exciting. I've been an artist a really long time and it's really fun to be able to come and do art at burns.

So yay.

[Stevan] (1:57 - 1:58)

Cool. How about you Myke?

[Myke] (1:58 - 2:23)

G'day. Uh, my name is Myke and I've been in the burner world since 2002, starting out in Nevada, but I've been to several burns all over the US, all over the world. And what happened as a theme camps along the way, uh, started building things, um, electronics and things, lanterns.

And then in 2011 and 12, I built temples for Burning Seed. Most recently running the goth camp Erstwhile Manor.

[Stevan] (2:23 - 2:24)

Cool. Simon?

[Simon] (2:24 - 3:18)

Hi.

Uh, yeah, I'm Simon, AKA monkey magic. I started my burn journey working for like a coffee and burger stall at falls festival that was run by burners making their own slice of paradise in an otherwise very commercial festival. So, uh, yeah, I learned a lot about the culture there.

Uh, it was many years after that, that I actually went to my first burn, which was burning man, uh, and then just fell in love and came back to Australia and I've been putting on events and, uh, creating art. And that's been slowly getting bigger and bigger. I helped start Aurora in Tassie and that's been a beautiful process.

So I run a big theme camp down there called Flux. And I was part of the first effigy. I built the temple last year.

And then this year again, I'll be the temple lead and, um, good flux again. So, but now I live in New South Wales. So I'm also really excited to be a part of the burn community on the mainland.

[Stevan] (3:18 - 3:21)

Cool. And welcome back Lumos to the show.

[Lumos] (3:22 - 3:54)

Yeah. So like most burners, a friend of mine told me in 2007 that I should go to KiwiBurn. So I did in the beginning of 2008 and yeah, I got hooked.

I have been involved with building art either as an effigy or as an art piece or the temple and every KiwiBurn that's been held since then. And, um, which is about, and a bunch of other temples around the world. Um, to me, the temples are very, very special and, um, yeah, it's a burn.

I'm, and I don't want to get away from it. I enjoy it. It's my life.

[Stevan] (3:54 - 4:10)

So one of my favorite things to listen to people's origin stories to see how they discovered the Burning Man culture, the Burning Man community in Australia and, um, all the localized artery, you know, communities here. So Monkey Magic, how did you get that burner name? What's your origin story?

[Simon] (4:10 - 4:33)

Yeah, that came about of, uh, yeah, I got the nickname Monkey, uh, from a very dear partner, um, a girl I was seeing who's no longer with us. And, uh, yeah, she would always call me Monkey. And then somewhere along the line, you know, it was observed that I may be bringing some magic to certain situations.

So the two got put together and yeah, here I am.

[Stevan] (4:33 - 4:34)

Were you a fan of the TV show as well?

[Simon] (4:35 - 4:52)

Yeah. Yeah. Massively.

Um, it was, yeah, it was, yeah, super cool. I was lucky enough to have that around as I was growing up and having, you know, this weird quirky show where lots of crazy adventures and weird shit happens. I was like, heck yeah, that's a great energy to try and bring to a burn.

[Stevan] (4:52 - 4:59)

Yeah. I love that show too. Okay.

Myke, would you like to share with us your burner origin stories? How did you get involved in, um, burn scene?

[Myke] (5:00 - 5:35)

Uh, I was on a beach in Seattle. We had a bonfire and a girl walks by with dreadlocks and she walks by later again and said, Hey, are you clearly looking for your friends or something? Do you want to hang out with us while your friends arrive?

Next thing you know, I'm going to burner parties and then I'm in Nevada and I'm part of a theme camp and then I'm building bikes and electronics and art and, and then, uh, yeah, when we came to Australia, uh, there wasn't really a burn thing happening. So I'm looking around, uh, and as soon as, uh, burn scene sort of started up, uh, I was out of it. So yeah, I like to build stuff.

I like to make things blow up. It's a good fit.

[Stevan] (5:35 - 5:37)

And for you Bea, um, when did it all begin?

[Bea] (5:37 - 7:26)

Yeah. So I've known about burning man and burning culture for a really long time. And, um, I was a fan of Larry Harvey's and particularly his commentary around burning man's art ideology, how it is a culture bearing and connective function.

It's about art that's meant to be touched and handled that blurs the line between spectator and participant. And that always fascinated me. And those principles around participation and communal effort and immediacy and radical self-expression, they've long underpinned my own art practice and my way of being.

So I feel like I was a burner long before I discovered burning. Um, but I got into burning because I was part of a community who started a small communal event called Wild Jam around 2013. Wild Jam was inspired by burning seeds.

So the people who started Wild Jam went to seed in 2012, came back going, wow, we really want to start our own little micro kind of thing. It's not really a burn cause we don't burn stuff. It's all live music.

There's no doof doof. So there are differences and it's actually a whole community. It's a community event, but I started going to that in 2013 as one of the original crew for that and kind of got hooked because we use very similar principles and similar kind of ideology.

And I built the temple space there for about six years running, which was really exciting. Um, again, cause we didn't burn it. So it was a little bit different in terms of thinking about what that looked like and how to create a temple that was kind of reusable or reconfigurable in different ways.

Um, and I kind of got hooked and it was through that. Cause I met some people through Wild Jam who were from a burning seed, people like Jman and Hannah, Amanda and Rebecca LeMay, people like that. And that they kind of encouraged me to come along to burning seed.

So eventually I did, it took me quite a few years until 2019, but yeah. And then once I landed, I was like, Oh wow, why is it taking me so long? So there you go.

And now I run a theme camp called Miss Peaches, which is fantastic. So I do Artery Lead, Miss Peaches. I take on too much, but I love it.

[Stevan] (7:26 - 7:29)

So art is the center of the Wild Jam community.

[Bea] (7:29 - 7:39)

Well, it's a, it's a live music community. So it's 200 musicians that descend on this property over New Year, every year for five days. So yeah, it's primarily music, but I bring the art element to it.

[Stevan] (7:39 - 7:43)

Yeah. Well, music is art as well. So yeah, it's a whole art festival. Music, lifestyle...

[Bea] (7:44 - 7:48)

And I'm also a musician, so, you know, that fits in well for me as well.

[Stevan] (7:48 - 7:55)

Yeah. And for you Lumos, uh, we've heard your story numerous times, uh, but let's, let's, let's hear it again. I love your, your background.

[Lumos] (7:55 - 9:28)

Well, as I say, yeah, got encouraged to go to KiwiBurn and very quickly found that that was my home. And at that first, that first event, for example, there was a character there and he built what he called a pirate ship. And I thought that was pretty cool, except it just sat there on the corner of the lake that our site was on and it didn't move.

It just sat there in the water. It didn't go. And I'm like, it's really cool, but it needs to move.

And at the end of the event, he turned around to me and he said, he said, well, I'm bored with it. You can take over this, uh, this project. So I then went home and started scratching around.

I found myself an outboard motor and got an art grant to buy a pile of safety gear, like life jackets. And we found an anchor rope and all these other things. And so from there on, we sailed out across the lake, which brought a whole new life to this pirate ship.

And we could go sailing at any time of the day or even at night that we wanted to. Um, so that was a really, really good fun. And then I'm heavily involved in the fire side of things.

So about 2000, my 10 year old son said he wanted to come to festivals with me and he wanted to spin fire. So I became the fire safety guy, but I was also very quickly spinning fire with him. So yeah, I'm heavily involved in fire safety and heavily involved in playing with fire in every form.

And as I tell the kids, when I run a fire safety with them, I set fire to the garage when I was about 10 years old, it didn't burn it down, but it did do some damage. So yeah, bad things can happen.

[Stevan] (9:29 - 9:48)

Yeah. So let's talk about, let's get, before we get into the artery talk, what I want to find out is your interpretations of art as in what is the in our culture and also in, in, in general life as well in, in the corporate settings, in the work settings, um, in the social settings, um, what is the purpose of art in general? What do you guys think?

[Lumos] (9:49 - 10:25)

Art's the bait that we throw out to encourage people and get them excited. They come to a festival, they see and hear art in its many forms and they think it's pretty exciting, especially as we can, we encourage people to play with this art. We climb on it, we push buttons, we swing on it, all reasonable things.

Art is not when you go to an art gallery and look at the pretty pictures on the wall. So yeah, we've got, we've got this cool art that gets people excited. And then once they're excited and they've taken the bite, then we start getting into them.

And we talk about community and the other things in our principle. That's my, my take on art.

[Myke] (10:25 - 10:43)

I think of it as a bit of a revolutionary act against the doldrums. Like we're sort of in a society where you have to spend your life working for money to afford food and house. And art is a bit of a revolutionary act to go, you know, there could be more than this.

I can have fun. We can have play. We can be kids.

[Bea] (10:43 - 12:31)

Yeah. I actually think that art is really important and not just art, but creativity. I think in society we have a tendency to conflate art, confuse art and creativity.

You know, art is often associated with a talent such as being able to paint or draw a world, but they're actually all skills that can be learned. Whereas creativity is actually really, really important to human wellbeing, to problem solving, to innovation, to a whole range of things. And in the default world, I'm also a human-centered designer and innovation coach, have been for about 30 years.

And it's really important to bring an element of play and creativity into the corporate world because you can't solve problems without that. And I think that that's, that's part of my job is to kind of reawaken the, the playful creativity within the suits in the business world. And that's always a good, fun thing.

But what I love about Burner art is that a little bit like Lumos said, like art, when you go to an art gallery, it often feels like a mausoleum. It's like the art feels dead. You know, it's up on the walls.

You have, you know, there's signs everywhere that say you can look, but you can't touch. But the art is created by people for people and it wants to be interacted with. And so what I love about Burner art is that it is really interactive and participatory.

And it's like an adult playground. It brings play back to adulthood. And I think that's really important.

It's also really important when it's an intergenerational event and kids get to see adults play and play with art or play in different ways. And I think that that playfulness, that creativity and the type of art that you find at Burner's is actually really critical to that human wellbeing and also to community building. I think when we build communally, we create community and we create community experience, shared experience, that's actually a really important part of community.

And that I think is what everyone's craving, that sense of belonging, that sense of community. And so we can really drive that through art and through creativity.

[Stevan] (12:31 - 12:33)

Yeah. What's your interpretation, Simon?

[Simon] (12:33 - 13:43)

Yeah. Well, I, yeah, I believe art is how we explore our humanity. We've evolved these cool big brains that can consider all these abstract concepts and express beauty and a depth of feeling that is absolutely incredible.

So art gives voice to that to provide an experience for connection, for contemplation, for growth, for empowerment, inspiration. So I think if a picture is worth 1000 words, how many words is a solid 3D piece of art that you can play with? So it's a really beautiful opportunity to get people thinking, to challenge them, to inspire them, to try and bring out the best of them.

And ideally, as in my experience, inspired to go, oh, maybe I could create something and then go through the process of, oh, I'm not an artist and realizing that everybody is an artist and everybody has something beautiful to say and express. And yeah, I believe Burner art is about that inclusivity and empowerment so that we can get radically authentic expression out of people.

[Stevan] (13:43 - 13:51)

And Burner art, how is that different to say other festival arts or social arts in an outside world, in a default world?

[Myke] (13:51 - 14:06)

It's often very interactive where you're immersed in the experience or you can touch it. I think that's unique to the Burner world and well, to some degree in that it's meant to be interacted with or climbed on or touched or spoken into and it feeds back to you. I like that aspect.

[Simon] (14:07 - 14:53)

Yeah. I really appreciate that interactivity and participation because like we were saying at a gallery, we have art there. We can say, oh, you can be an artist, but there's no tangible means for the viewer to be involved.

So when you've got these incredible sculptures that are a space to come and hang out and you can control the lighting, you can boop on little buttons or your presence does different things. You become a part of the art and it becomes this beautiful way to show people that they are artists, that any person can walk past this, engage with it and have a unique expression through being involved with the art. And that's what I really like about Berner art is it encourages everyone and shows them that they are an artist.

[Bea] (14:54 - 15:47)

Yeah. And I think collaboration, that idea of collaboration and participation is really critical to Berner art, but that's something that you don't always get elsewhere. And one of the principles of my theme camp, Miss Peaches, is that we're an interactive performance art theme camp, but the performances don't happen until the audience is participating.

So the whole purpose of everything that we try to do through Miss Peaches is that it provides a framework that's accessible for people to come in and have a go at something creative, whatever that might be, whether it's painting, whether it's building something, whether it's being silly, whether it's showing off your own talents, whether it's screeching like a seagull, whether it's doing singing and playing music.

It's all designed to be about being accessible. So the bar is always kind of low deliberately so that people can come in and have a go and get involved in some way and maybe try out something that they wouldn't try out otherwise. But it's all about collaboration as well.

And I think that that's a really important component to Berner art that you don't get elsewhere.

[Lumos] (15:47 - 17:07)

Yeah. Participation is a really big thing. We had a couple of amazing creations at Kiwiburn over the years.

One of them was Cows with Gun. It was our first time we actually built something with a proper skeleton. So it was a fixed skeleton, had a little bit of cladding on it.

And where that was built was about 200 metres from where it was going to burn. So this 25 metre structure is picked up by everybody who's on site in the community, about 50 or 60 people picked this thing up and walked down the road inside the farm to the site where it's going to be placed. And then with the help of a tractor, we lifted upright and placed it in its correct position.

And it was really good for the community to do this. Another year, we built our effigy on the ground and then the community used a long rope and they took part in raising the structure up. So we were standing on top of a pyramid.

So when we can get the community involved in this, and it's like no special skills required, no huge amount of strength, just come along and pick up the rope and pull when you get told to pull. I think that's very important. And then people start to realise that I can do these things.

And yeah, we can encourage, because everybody is an artist. Burner art is fairly broad in its possibilities. Yeah.

There's lots of things for people to do.

[Bea] (17:08 - 17:55)

I think that's the other thing I like is that burner art redefines what art is. And I quite like that because when you say in the default world, you're an artist, people immediately go, oh, do you paint or do you draw? There are so many different types of artistic expression in the burner scene that that's what I think is really exciting.

And it really opens people up to different ways of viewing art and to making art accessible so that people are able to say, oh, maybe I am an artist because I can do that. Or I have these sort of ideas or it inspires them to think about, you know, it's quite a challenge to create something that is participatory or collaborative or interactive in some way. And that is actually a really good challenge that I really enjoy seeing people rise to.

And I always love seeing what people bring because they always surprise you with what people bring to art when you give them permission to do that.

[Stevan] (17:55 - 18:09)

Yeah, it's meant to, art is meant to inspire as well as it's meant to also make you think differently as well. So are there any examples that recently that you've seen a piece of artwork and actually make you rethink about what art is?

[Lumos] (18:10 - 19:04)

Yeah, I think it was Embers, loose track of which burns which. And there was a library there and the artist in collaboration with a bunch of other people had started either taking old books or creating books and making these art pieces to fit inside the library. And you didn't know, you could happily pick a book off the shelf if you really wanted to, you could take it home, but you're encouraged to pick it up and have a read.

And next thing you know, you're looking there and you're going, oh, this is another aspect to art I hadn't thought of before. I was like, oh, yes, okay, well, I'll write that down in my little notebook of crazy ideas because it was so simple. We can either take an existing book and we can add pictures or we can add words or we can start a whole new book.

And it's just like, it is so simple that everybody can do it and there is no limit to what you can do.

[Stevan] (19:04 - 19:33)

Yeah, when you think about burning man, you think about the massive scale, the elaborate ingenuity, all that stuff, but because it's perfectly set on a blank canvas. So people can, artists can create whatever they want. But in terms of our landscape here, we have different, we have forests, we have lake beds, we have deserts, stuff like that.

But when we're creating art here, are there elements of thinking that you have to consider when you're making art for our region?

[Bea] (19:33 - 21:33)

Well, I think it's interesting, burnable art, because certainly at the moment with after the fires that happened five or six years ago that were pretty traumatic for a lot of rural communities in particular, I think burning and burnable arts now come with a certain degree of associated trauma. So thinking about how we create those same sorts of transformative effects that perhaps a large scale fire can provide to the community in different ways or through different forms of art is actually an important discussion and challenge at the moment, because that is potentially problematic in Australia and the burn season is getting smaller and smaller as a result. It's harder to get permits, people are scared.

So that's definitely, I think, a challenge. But I was going to say one of the things I really enjoyed when I went to Underland Burn was I came across something at about 2am called the Totally Wax Snack Shack. And it was quite wild.

It was a couple of guys dressed as clowns with a little portable food trolley thing. But it was more performance art than it had anything to do with food. So you kind of had to play these silly games and do all these silly things while they did this silly performance piece to get a snack.

And then the snack that you got, I mean, I ended up with a pickle on a stick, which was hilarious at sort of two in the morning, but it took about half an hour. It felt like hours to get this snack because you had to go through all of these crazy, silly things first. And for me, that really made me go, huh, so performance art really is a type of art.

And these kinds of shenanigans and silly creative things that you come across randomly at two o'clock in the morning, which not everyone is going to experience at a burn, so they become quite an intimate personal experience as well, actually helped me to redefine art. And in fact, it's one of the things that we've now looked at redefining the criteria for what is art for funding art grants through Seed as a result, because I think those kinds of little performance art pieces, little shenanigans like that are really critical to how we define art.

[Stevan] (21:33 - 21:36)

So art is everywhere at a burn, really, if you think about it.

[Bea] (21:36 - 21:36)

Absolutely.

[Myke] (21:37 - 21:55)

When people ask me to describe a burn to them, you often don't have the language, but if you're starting to try to put a bunch of words together into a basket, calling it an art festival is not too untrue. In the basket full of words that you might use, those two do come out quite often.

[Stevan] (21:56 - 22:05)

Yeah, there is a sort of like making art as a central focus of the community. And art also includes music and food as well, because food is art for sure.

[Bea] (22:06 - 22:38)

Yeah. And I think there've been some great examples of some of the kinetic sculptures and moving sculptures that incorporate elements of food in them as well, that have been really exciting to see, like the caterpillar at Embers, which David built, which is like the Very Hungry Caterpillar, but it had a full stove and cooktop built into it so he could cook food as he roved around the paddock as the Very Hungry Caterpillar.

And I thought that was ingenious, but also just amazing to have someone rock up at, again, two o'clock in the morning and hand you a piece of cooked meat. It was quite impressive.

[Stevan] (22:39 - 22:44)

Yeah, we haven't even mentioned the mutant vehicles, which is a huge part of our community and culture, Lumos.

[Lumos] (22:46 - 22:47)

Yeah, I'm slightly biased towards...

[Stevan] (22:47 - 22:47)

That's Art too.

[Lumos] (22:48 - 22:49)

Yeah, I want to save that for part two.

[Bea] (22:51 - 23:34)

Sure, well, I don't know. I do think that like the mutant vehicles, the kinetic sculptures are also part of like what makes a burn different in terms of art, right? Because they're very participatory, they're very interactive.

You don't see them elsewhere. Although to be fair, the first time I came across something like that, that really inspired me to build the Cat Bus was at Iron Fest, which is not a burn, but has a lot of roving vehicles and sort of kinetic sculptures in particular, and things like the kinetic sculpture race in California. Those sorts of vehicles and those sorts of experiences are really quite unique, and it's fantastic to see them come to burner events and have those sorts of opportunities to see another form of art.

[Myke] (23:34 - 23:38)

Where else can you go home and tell your friends you almost got run over by a giant snail?

[Bea] (23:38 - 23:38)

Exactly.

[Stevan] (23:39 - 23:46)

And can you remember some of the art pieces that you've guys built over the years for the burner community?

[Myke] (23:46 - 23:47)

That we've built?

[Stevan] (23:47 - 23:49)

Yeah, some small projects, some big projects?

[Myke] (23:49 - 24:22)

I've built a lot of LEDs and things. I had a couple of community grants early days that I built a community solar-powered charging station for phones and things like that. I had a bike with a trailer that had a battery-powered projector that would project fish onto the trees and once I'm onto the temple, once I'm onto the effigy.

A bit of a silent disco thing or sometimes portable speakers as well. We built lanterns for the lamplighters. Yeah, the bigger pieces.

Currently building some Mad Max bikes.

[Stevan] (24:23 - 24:23)

Cool.

[Bea] (24:23 - 25:38)

So my first burn in 2019, I had the cat bus, which I had built, which is a full-size cat bus from the Japanese anime My Neighbor Totoro. So we can take the first iteration, he was like a four-person giant puppet, but now he has wheels and can take two adults or three kids for a ride, which is pretty exciting. He's like an autonomous vehicle with a mind of his own.

I think shopping trolley meets Flintstones bus. So he's come to Burning Seed and he's been to Canberra burn and a few other small burns as well. Most recently this year, I've built two installations for two different events.

So I built for Spice of Life, I built something called the Altar of Passion, which was a large cabinet of curiosity style thing that you walk into and then there's a little altar in the middle, which was a vulva. So you can put your hand in the vulva and you can get some little affirmations out of there. But there was a whole piece within that altar space talking about identity and empowerment and reclamation of your own powers.

And most recently with Pilot Burn, I just built the Stargate portal, which was about three meters tall as a little portal way entry across the bridge into the main paddock space. So that'll also come to third degree this year.

[Stevan] (25:38 - 25:45)

And Simon, before building the temple at Aurora Burn, did you dabble at other little art projects?

[Simon] (25:46 - 27:54)

Yeah, I make a lot of sort of like decor, LED, stained glass, UV kind of artworks. I have made a number of spaces. So I really appreciate burn art is often these standalone spaces that attract you day or night and you wander on over and it can be a little meeting place like a little electric campfire where someone else also on a journey arrives and your paths intertwine for just a brief moment and they can spark really beautiful connection and conversation.

So yeah, some spaces like that where often because I use a lot of mirrors and light and reflections, there's usually a way to view it that isn't immediately obvious that unlock something about it and a new way of seeing yourself or your surroundings. And I really like that concept of rewarding curiosity. So when people are a little bit curious and investigative, they get a little Easter egg that not everyone might get.

And I think that's a really fun and playful way of inspiring people to be curious and to how does this work? What goes on here? What happens if I do that?

And a little reward for play is fantastic. And yeah, then that moved into more like bigger fire sculptures. Because I'm a glass artist, I've been making these beautiful glass pieces like in the effigy I helped build in Tassie for Sparkadia.

It was a turbo truck and a native hen from Tasmania. They've got iconic red eyes. So I made these beautiful glass eyes to go on it with LEDs and things.

When it burned, the eyes were in there. I kept sifting through the ashes for hours and hours all night to get all these little globs and bits of glass. And now I have a whole bunch of them that I plan to make a lantern for and incorporate in the temple this year.

So I really like that idea of things going through the fire, coming out, altered, different, burnt, broken, and can be remade into something even more beautiful.

[Stevan] (27:54 - 28:06)

Yeah, Bea, I like what you said about art. It's not about the skill, it's about permission. So usually people think it is about the skill, but it's the permission to actually let your artistic creative ability come out.

[Bea] (28:07 - 29:42)

Yeah, well, I mean, skills can be learned, right? So I'm a concept-first artist and always have been. I don't have a fixed medium.

And so for me, it's what is the concept and how do I want to execute that? What's the best way to execute it? So then I go and learn the skills.

Like I didn't know how to weld before I started building the cat bus. I didn't know how to make a two-meter long cat bus out of fur, teddy bear fur, and how to build patterns for it. So I have the concept and then I learn the skills.

And I think that that's the trick. I think if we can invite people in and give them permission to have a go at executing on their idea, whatever that might be, provide them with some mentoring and some guidance, hook them up with other people who perhaps have experience doing the kinds of build that they want to do. It then enables you to build the skills that you need to execute on your idea.

And what I've seen through being the art lead is making it accessible for people to have a go and come in and try something. They might start with something small to begin with, get a grant to try and build something small. They learn that building things on the paddock requires you to think about things like scale and weather and safety and how people are going to interact with it and how you're going to light it up at night.

And then they get inspired and they talk to other artists and they go, oh, that's how you do lighting. Oh, that's how you do scale. Oh, that's how you start to think about it in a different way.

And then the next year they come back and they want to build something bigger and more ambitious. And so that idea of experimenting and failing and trying again and experimenting and learning from others is actually a really critical part of enabling people to get in and have that permission to try it, see how they go and then build on their experiences and build their skills.

[Stevan] (29:42 - 29:51)

Yeah. What are the key elements, I guess, to building art, do you think? So having the permission, acquiring the skills later on, having a creative mind, is that key as well?

[Bea] (29:52 - 30:04)

Well, I think everybody is creative, but yeah, being able to acknowledge that you are creative and you have ideas just like everybody else, right? And so it's taking those ideas out of your head and putting them into the real world.

[Simon] (30:04 - 30:30)

And being comfortable making mistakes and learning how to let go of attachments to things being a certain way. It's really easy to think, I've got to make this thing, it's got to look exactly like this. And then along the process, you realize, oh no, this is the art we get.

And that's the beauty in it. So not being too fixated on things being a certain way, because then you're just aiming for the destination. And art is the journey.

[Stevan] (30:30 - 30:39)

And what about the support and the network? Do you find that in the burner community? It is readily available.

You can chat to people, you can ask questions, you can get help.

[Bea] (30:40 - 31:20)

I think there is, but I think for some people, especially say maybe Burgens or people who are new to the scene, but also new to thinking about themselves as an artist, it can be a little bit daunting or not quite sure where to start or who to approach or how to approach them. So I do think it's helpful to perhaps through things like the Artery have some sort of meet the artists or opportunity to hook people up with experienced artists so that you can get that knowledge sharing and mentoring, because it can be a little bit tricky for new people. I think once you know everyone, then yeah, you can just go, hey, Mike, help me out with this thing or whatever.

But when you don't know people, it's a bit challenging.

[Stevan] (31:20 - 31:24)

What's your advice, Limos, for Burgens who actually want to create art?

[Lumos] (31:24 - 33:11)

Good question. At KiwiBurn in 2025, we created the art support services. It was a very strong thing.

And quite a few art grants were given to small art pieces that were being produced by newbie artists. And some of them were quite amazing. As always, a number of things got damaged or broken during the event.

And art support services did quite a bit of work helping people to fix their thing up, because it got wet when it wasn't supposed to, because we had more rain than we expected, or various other things. I spent a lot of time working with those people, because I believe, yes, everybody is an artist. And once you've created your first thing, then you start to realize that you can do the second thing and the third thing.

And after build number 27, you're starting to think like anything is possible. And then we start encouraging cooperative ventures. Some people like to work by themselves, but in many cases, I encourage them if they can, if you've got an idea, throw the idea out, see who else is interested, because you might find other people who can help you build this thing that you want.

And that can be because of skills you don't have, because we often don't have all the skills we require. We might get two out of the four skills. In some cases, we can learn the new skills.

Other cases, we can ask our community and somebody will pipe up and say, oh, I can create some lights for you that'll do that. And then bingo, you have your solution. And now we've got two people excited about building this, whatever it was.

So yeah, don't be afraid to ask. Some people like to play the secret squirrel game. So nobody will know what this thing is until it shows up.

But I'm always keen to encourage people, share your ideas, get it out there and get somebody to help you because you are allowed to help each other. That's a key thing in the Burner community is about helping each other do this thing, because you don't have to do everything yourself.

[Simon] (33:11 - 33:55)

Yeah. And that's what I think. Just reach out.

There's so many people in our community that would love to help, even if that's just a sounding board for an idea or just saying, heck, yeah, that sounds amazing. You should do that. And it can be really daunting initially to make that initial request.

But people are really keen. I know I'm really keen and I get a lot of inspiration from myself and someone approaches me and I've got this crazy idea and like, cool, let's get into the nitty gritty of the nuts and bolts and what the problem is to solve. And yeah, it's very more than likely they'll be in your corner and keen to sort of help you out, even if that's just having a chat with them and some reassurance and validation.

[Stevan] (33:55 - 34:07)

There is some kind of a bit of a worry, I guess, for some people that if you do share it, your ideas could be stolen or you don't have control over them anymore. But not in the Burner community, is it? It is collaborative.

[Lumos] (34:07 - 34:46)

Most people in the Burner community are open source kind of people. We're not very proprietary orientated. And there are those who say there are no new ideas.

Everything's a version of something else. I'm forever seeing an art piece that somebody else has done. And I go, that's really cool.

But if I did it, I would end thinking all the things that I would do to it, which would make it different. Because in the case of that pirate ship, it was great. It sat there at the water's edge and it's like, cool, it's a floating patio deck that sits in the water.

It's like, no, it needs to move. So we see these things and we go, yes, in my mind, this would make it better. So yeah, feel free to take the idea and expand it into something more exciting.

[Bea] (34:46 - 35:39)

And I think that's what is exciting about collaborative art or Burner art is that when you ask, what if, what if we did this, this way, and you invite other people into the conversation, they go, yes. And what if we did this? And it actually, you don't know where it's going to go.

It can go in a whole new direction that you would never have expected from your original idea, but it can be a lot better what comes out. And that's actually really exciting. And it's kind of the same when you provide a framework and you invite people to come in and take it in a different direction.

You don't know what's going to be built. And like Simon said earlier, it's a really great exercise in letting go of perfectionism, letting go of perhaps what you thought it was going to be because something even more amazing might emerge out of that. But that's what I like about collaborating with other people is that it can make your idea even better and stronger and weirder and take it in a whole new direction.

And that's actually a exciting thing.

[Stevan] (35:39 - 36:11)

There's never a shortage of opinions amongst Burners, are there? So someone's got to jump in and try to improve your idea or concept, which is a great thing. Which is what I love.

And for communal art making, I want to touch on communal art making and playful art making. I think these two come hand in hand because you got to have that fun side of art and also the serious side. But the communal part is where I love where we all come together as a team, as a community.

So do you want to expand on that, Bea, with the communal art making that you do?

[Bea] (36:11 - 37:23)

Yeah. So I think with communal art, it's really about bringing art back to the community, right? And creating something as a whole community.

It builds a shared experience. It builds kind of a shared knowledge and understanding. But it really also helps people to...

When you're collaborating in real time like that, you're learning to trust each other. You're learning to build without any kind of hierarchy. You're learning to problem solve, try and fail.

You're learning how you're going to shift things. And a small example of that was the activities that we did at Bonza, for example, to build the tallest tower with spaghetti and marshmallow. That's a very typical kind of exercise that we use in innovation coaching, for example, to help people work together and build something, collaborate, play.

And those kinds of aspects are really important in community building as well. It also teaches things like resilience. It helps to understand how do we come together with diverse opinions, diverse skillset, and look at where are people's strengths and how do we leverage that to create something new.

And I think that that's actually a really exciting thing.

[Stevan] (37:23 - 37:23)

Go ahead, Myke.

[Myke] (37:24 - 38:14)

Yeah. I was just going to add to that.

I think theme camps are a great example of collaborative art building. You have this group of people who have an idea or a concept or a theme, and they get together. And the whole is much greater than the sum of the parts.

The camps are put together, and the decor, and the sound, and audio, and the lights. And you create a vibe. And next thing you know, you're attracting more people to your camp that are on your vibe.

And it's a very community-building kind of art experience, I find. So yeah, that is one aspect of Berner culture that I love in terms of communal art. And then sharing it with everyone else on the paddock.

They'll be like, Oh, what did you guys build? Oh, we're from Temple of... Whatever.

Yeah, cool. We're going to come check it out. And you can compare notes.

Oh yeah, that's a great idea. That's a great idea. How you did that.

So yeah, I find that aspect fabulous.

[Bea] (38:15 - 38:43)

And on that, Myke, I also like the cross-camp collaboration as well. When you get 2 camps working together to create something. So I also really enjoy that when you get...

I know that we've talked about doing collaboration with Erstwhile and Miss Peaches, and I love that concept of how do we create something that's participatory and performative, but also gothic. I love that kind of cross-collaboration because it throws new ideas in and it takes things in new directions, which I think is great.

[Stevan] (38:43 - 39:04)

Yeah, definitely. Collaboration is sexy. Yeah, that's a good point, Myke.

Talking about theme camps as art as well. So you are decorating and you are designing a space that is always different. So with playful art-making Lumos, you shared with us an example at Ignition this year, how we can be playful with our art pieces and our designs.

[Lumos] (39:04 - 41:17)

Yeah. So one of the things that we did at Ignition, because we can't physically burn anything using solid fuel. So we don't have an effigy.

We don't have a temple. It's like, what can we do as art? And of course, we have some money in the kitty because the money we were going to spend to build a temple and to build an effigy is sitting there available.

So one of the crazy ideas that was created was that we would have Paddockmon cards instead of Pokemon cards, and we would create our own trading cards. And everybody had the opportunity when you signed up for your Get Your Ticket to have a card created for you. And I got a beautiful card that was created by many of my crazy friends on the committee there.

And what was interesting is that you got given a couple of cards when you started. There were things you could do during the event which would get you more cards available as starter packs. And then you had the opportunity to get out there and start trading.

And so we had people trading to get the cards of the other people in their camp or their friends. And at one afternoon, we had a wild party happening on one end of our sheltered space and the other end of the space with a whole pile of people trading their Pokemon cards because the nerds and the partygoers both had an opportunity to do some things that got quite exciting. And those Paddockmon cards are still in circulation.

People have created massive decks of the cards, and they play Paddockmon cards and Paddockmon games. So it's a really exciting thing for people to do that has carried on even well after the event, which was held in mid-January. And it's now halfway through the year.

And six months later, people are still playing with those cards and getting enjoyment out of them. And I think as far as value for money went, one of our brighter ideas, it took a lot of energy, but the energy and money was going to go into creating an effort. So, yeah, we saved on one side and we spent that time and money doing something else.

So think outside the square. Think of what crazy things you can do because the world is your oyster.

[Stevan] (41:18 - 41:20)

And what were some of the interesting takeaways from that experiment?

[Lumos] (41:20 - 41:41)

Interesting takeaways? Well, the cards, the creativity, the fact that it could appeal to people who weren't just there for the party. Some of us aren't just there for the party.

Some of us are there for other reasons. And that gave us an opportunity of exploring more reasons why we went to the event. And I think that's always important because we're not all just there for a wild party.

[Stevan] (41:41 - 41:54)

Let's talk about the Artery Paddock talk that happened at Pilot burn at Centre Camp. So thanks, everyone, for showing up on that day. And thanks, Bea, for moderating it, facilitating it.

So I'll just hand it over to you, Bea, and take over.

[Bea] (41:54 - 42:18)

Yeah, sure. Thanks, Steve. So let's start with having a chat about building large-scale art.

So if you want to build big, how do you even start with that? What kinds of things do you need to consider if you want to build something big? Not necessarily burnable, just big.

I want to start maybe with Myke. Can you give us some ideas of what you do when you're starting to think about building large-scale art?

[Myke] (42:19 - 43:19)

Yeah. All I should say, my background is engineering. So the first thing I start to think about is how do I build something ginormous without hurting someone or letting it fall over?

Or if someone climbs on it, are they going to fall off and get hurt? And that's something, certainly, ever-present at Burns. There is a bit of a culture of being able to climb on art at Burns.

And dabbling with that risk level is part of the fun, to some degree, less so in New South Wales, but more so in other parts of the world. So I guess the first thing that comes to mind is footings. Does it have its own feet?

Is it sort of pyramid-shaped and it's not going to be able to fall over? Or do you need to bury a third of it in the ground in terms of structure so that whatever you build up on top, it's got enough poise that it doesn't get blown over or pulled over because 6 or 8 humans crawl up one side and it starts listing? So yeah, first thing I'd be starting to think about is safety, even before you sort of come up with a concept of what you're trying to build.

[Bea] (43:19 - 43:32)

Yeah, cool. Thank you for that. And when you're starting to think about designing large-scale art, Lumos, is there something that you would, is there particular things that you would do when it comes to design of large art?

[Lumos] (43:32 - 43:39)

Yeah, well, as I said, yes, it wants to be safe. We don't want too many people getting killed exploring the possibilities of this thing.

[Bea] (43:39 - 43:40)

Or anyone, even.

[Lumos] (43:41 - 45:42)

We've also got, you know, what will the wind do to this thing? If we get strong winds, will this whole wall turn into a parachute and flip my thing upside down? Because nature and the forces of the earth is not your friend.

It wants to trash your art piece. It may not happen, but think about what's the worst that could happen, and then bear that in mind, because sometimes those things will happen. And then we're thinking about, okay, I've got this thing.

I personally actually never have a final idea of what I'm building. I have a vague idea of what I'm doing, and then my things kind of develop a life of their own and evolve. But other projects I've worked on, we had the engineers' drawings, and we had the specifications, and we cut things to fit those drawings, and we did everything that the engineers and the architects involved had told us to do.

And we built some pretty amazing things. And then you're thinking about, well, if I'm going to build this thing high up off the ground, am I going to have access to equipment that'll let me get up 30 feet off the ground? Can I lift these things up?

Can I lift the whole sheet of plywood up that high to get this thing finished? Or do I build this in pieces, which is what we did for 2011, 2011, 2016. 2011, Temple of Transition, massive, biggest temple ever built at Burning Man, and we built them like a wedding cake.

So you built three or four layers, and then you assembled the biggest layer on the bottom, and then you built the next layer, and you used a crane to lift it up and drop it on top. And then you used the crane to lift up the smallest piece and stick it on top of that, because that was the only way you could safely get the thing up. And then you had to think about, well, while I'm lifting this thing up in the air, is it going to fall apart?

What bad things can happen? And yeah, we had to get in a particularly massive crane to do the final parts of our lift, because we were so far off the ground. And you always have to think about, yeah, we're putting this thing together.

It's amazing. And when you stand back and you look at it, and you go, wow.

[Bea] (45:44 - 46:03)

Yeah, so that's really interesting, I think. There's quite a lot of things to think about with building large art, right? And I like that idea of do you build it modular?

Do you not build it modular? Do you build it on site? Do you build it off site?

But how do you even get started? You just grab some materials and start with a hammer and some nails. What do you think, Simon?

How do you get started with building large scale art?

[Simon] (46:04 - 47:08)

I work backwards, kind of how you mentioned where I have the concept first, and then figure out how I'm going to make that a reality. So having to think about what it's going to look like, what you're trying to achieve, how it all might go together will help determine what materials you might need, and then where you can source them from. In a perfect world, we're recycling stuff, or not creating too much of a demand for new stuff.

So that can be all part of the process of considering once we have an idea, then for me, thinking about transport and how am I going to get it there and on site. If we can build stuff off site and then arrive with somewhat pre-assembled stuff, for me, that can be a little bit easier and give you more space for creativity on site. So instead of spending all your effort doing the less interesting, less expressive nuts and bolts of things, you have a little bit more energy and space for the cherries on top and the playful creativity that goes with some of these big things.

[Bea] (47:08 - 47:32)

Yeah, cool. So for me, I like to start with little sketches, pencil sketches, pen sketches, etc. Sometimes I'll build a maquette or a prototype out of cardboard or paper first to see if it's going to work proportionally or to get a sense of whether or not it's going to fall over.

Do any of you guys do anything like that? Or do you use software like CAD or anything like that to come up with your designs? How does it work for you?

[Lumos] (47:32 - 47:34)

Yeah, I'm old school, so I use pencil and paper.

[Bea] (47:34 - 47:39)

Yeah, me too. Is that a helpful part of the process? Sorry, Myke, go for it.

[Myke] (47:39 - 47:53)

I was just going to say, I've used a variety of things. I often do start with pencil and paper. I prefer a big thick black pen because of the way it looks.

But I also have used CAD and other 3D sort of software to come up with things.

[Bea] (47:53 - 48:07)

And do you think is it an important part of the process for you guys to do things like prototypes and sketches first? Or do you, you know, if we're sort of working backwards and sort of doing things intuitively, is it necessary? What are your thoughts on that?

[Simon] (48:07 - 48:31)

Yeah, I think it's pretty important to have a decent plan because once you start building bigger things, like we've mentioned, the structural integrity and safety is really important. I think having a solid plan of the structure, how it's going to mount, how it's going to be, you know, attached to the earth is the foundation that you need for a successful project.

[Bea] (48:31 - 48:31)

Yeah.

[Myke] (48:32 - 48:42)

It also helps if you're concepting and you've built a little prototype. You can take photos of that and send that in for your art grant. You go, I want to make this but 400 times size bigger.

[Bea] (48:44 - 48:47)

Do you use AI for that as well now to mock up concepts?

[Myke] (48:47 - 49:08)

I have studied using a little bit of AI when I was pitching an art car a couple of years ago. So it's there. Obviously, everyone has mixed feelings about AI.

It's kind of a really fancy tool, like a paintbrush, in my opinion. So there's some pros and cons. But yeah, look, it's all around us.

It's here to stay. So I think we'd have to embrace the technology.

[Bea] (49:09 - 49:20)

Well, my opinion is that it's useful for putting in your art grant submission to show your concept, but it's not terribly useful for engineering plans or, you know, actually prototyping if this thing is going to work in reality, right?

[Myke] (49:20 - 49:27)

Yeah, not yet. You probably need to know enough engineering to ask it enough questions to tell you what you kind of already know.

[Bea] (49:27 - 49:52)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's talk about materials for a sec. Simon, you mentioned before, you know, then you can start to think about what materials you might use.

We talked a little bit about, you know, maybe some recycling materials or sourcing materials. So one thing with burner art often is it's either self-funded or partially grant funded, but never fully grant funded. So is that a consideration in thinking about materials and what you might use to build your large art?

[Simon] (49:52 - 50:57)

Yeah, for me, that's a huge part of it. So we have Leave No Trace as one of our principles. I've been pushing for language around positive impact as well.

As soon as we start making anything or step out our front door and turn our car on, we are leaving a trace. So by sort of a positive impact mentality and mindset, we can start to think, how can I minimize the consumption of stuff to maximize the output for this art piece? So tip shops are really, really good.

There's... This is why having an idea and some concept sketches and things means that you can go to the tip shop and have a rough idea what you want to achieve, but you won't know the specifics till you see, Oh, here's some old piece of junk lying around that was trash for someone. And now it's become a treasure that can become a beautiful artwork.

And knowing that you're not creating extra demand, then new materials. Yeah, it can be a pretty fun process.

[Bea] (50:58 - 51:53)

Yeah, I think it's a great challenge. Actually, when I was building the temple space with Wild Jam, pretty much we had no budget for that at all. So everything was sourced for free as much as possible.

So council cleanups are great for that. Contacting local council is great for finding things. Gumtree or Facebook marketplace, great for finding free materials.

Tip shops, absolutely. So yeah, all of those places where you can try and find what you need as much as possible with a shoestring budget is really helpful. But recycling and reuse is also a really good thing.

So I agree with you on that one. And being able to reuse afterwards as well, if you're not burning it, is helpful. Lumos, you mentioned having to build it modularly as well.

And for transportation reasons, my trailer is only 2.4 meters long. So that limits how big something can be. So I have to build it in pieces to transport it.

Is that something you need to think about, Lumos?

[Lumos] (51:53 - 53:01)

You need to think about that. You also need to think we recently, I was involved this year in the temple that we built. And we built it, or most of it was put together several miles down the road on a friend's farm.

We had a covered space to work in. And once we got the basics together, it was like, okay, now we have to transport this thing, which is now about four meters wide and about four meters long. And we have to transport it to the site.

So we made a mission and we drove down and we went up to all the gates that we had to get through and put the tape measure across the gates to work out, was it going to be, the gates going to be wide enough for us to get this thing through? Bearing in mind, it was going to be sitting on the deck of a truck. What was the height going to be?

Were we going to be able to get caught with any power lines or trees we had to get under? So we met the whole thing out and worked out, yes, we could do this. And we won't say, but the structure did happen.

It did move. I wasn't there at some earthly hour of the morning and no police were involved at all. But it was literally a mile down the road.

[Bea] (53:02 - 53:07)

Yeah, that's pretty cool. I think you were going to say something before as well about materials and reuse of materials.

[Lumos] (53:07 - 55:13)

Yeah. Big material that you can use for all sorts of crazy stuff. Bamboo.

Bamboo you can get for free. If you start asking around, there's always somebody who's got some bamboo that needs cutting back. Bamboo is lightweight.

It's incredibly strong. If you split it, and we've spent the last 10 years, at least at Kiwi Burn, splitting bamboo to get amazing textures. So when they created the, actually quite a few of them, we've actually managed to get some beautiful curves and shapes to resemble the minotaur.

That's the one I think of. It was a beautiful shaped minotaur. You could see the muscles in it.

And one afternoon the ladies were walking around and checking out all the backsides of the men because they wanted to create a nice tight ass on this minotaur. They set themselves the mission of checking out all the backsides and all they asked is to work out how they want, what was a good ass going to look like? Because we could get lots of texture and lots of shape using split bamboo.

So it's like, yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a material that is often forgotten about. And if you want to start talking to people, we got, how do we, before we split it, if we wanted to do a structure, how can we tie bits together? You go talking to the hippies and they'll tell you that there's different ways, different techniques you can use to tie bamboo together, which means it'll hold.

But it's a, it's a wonderful material that you can use. Driftwood can be another amazing material. So one of the years at Kiwiburn, they spent the art grant money hiring a big truck and they went on a mission about a number of miles down the road to a West Coast beach that was covered in driftwood to find all the pieces of driftwood that they wanted to create the shape.

And then they spent a week slicing it up into slabs and then sanding off those slabs. So there was a surface for people to write on. So it was like, yes, spent no money on materials, but we used natural materials, but we hired a truck and then we spent a lot of manpower to slice it up and clean it up.

But it was a very beautiful temple.

[Bea] (55:13 - 55:39)

Yeah, that's a pretty awesome thing as well. So using a lot of natural materials, I'm a big fan of that as well. I think that's really, really a good thing to do.

I want to pivot just to start talking about large-scale burnable art now. So is it different when you want to burn your art or when you're designing for large fire art? In what ways are they different and what sorts of things do you need to consider if you want to build large fire art?

Let's start with you, Myke.

[Myke] (55:40 - 56:14)

I was going to say, please, please, please consider how it burns and how you're going to light it. There are way too many burns where it takes 45 minutes to get the thing lit and then it takes two and a half hours for it to really get going hard because it's built out of hardwoods and it's very sparse. So if you're going to build it out of hardwoods and it's really sparse, then on your burn day, fill it with bamboo or hay or windfall timber or something so that we're not all just staring at it for 45 minutes while everyone's kicking out and wanting to go have a party.

Yeah.

[Bea] (56:15 - 56:38)

Yeah. Okay. So do you want to dive into that a little bit more and talk about maybe how you then design for a good fire and what kinds of materials you might want to consider in order to make sure that it is going to burn and burn well?

I'm assuming that for fire art, you don't just want to go down to the chip shop and pick out any old timbers. There probably needs to be some consideration about that.

[Myke] (56:38 - 58:32)

A little bit. You need to think about how it's going to fall over. If it's high or if it's more moundy, that's easier.

Common materials are pallets. You can get pallets often for free. People go, I'll get all these free pallets and take them apart, take the nails out and build something out of it.

And it's certainly possible. I would say keep it relatively short, a couple of meters, like three meters, because it does generate a lot of embers, which if you're in the desert, that's fine. Embers are fun.

But if you're kind of surrounded, I'm thinking about third degree where you've got trees and around and a bit of a slope, you don't want a lot of embers in that case. So softwoods are kind of okay. Hardwoods are great for structure.

Having a mix of the two is probably pretty good. And then when you think about as it burns, you don't want your main hardwood timbers to be the last thing standing and everything else has come off, like all the skin has come off and the skeleton's there. So do you want to start notching it out so that when it does come down, it comes down as a particular way?

Do you want to drill holes through it? It's easier to start it. It's reasonably common for people to have the structure for a week.

And then the day of the burn, they close the structure for the day and they cut a bunch of holes in it or a bunch of notches in it. Even I was involved with a guy who was a fire scientist who talked about flues and how you could shape the flues and the channels as it burns. If you light at the bottom and you come up through the flue, you get the whole thing kind of going from the inside.

So there's a lot of thinking around that. There's a number of people in the community that know a little bit more about that. But yeah, as this thing burns, you want it to burn all at the same time, not from the bottom and then fall over and then you've got this big pile of wood that you need to keep tucking into the bonfire.

[Bea] (58:32 - 58:36)

Yeah, that's great. Thanks, Myke. Simon, have you got thoughts on large?

[Simon] (58:36 - 1:00:55)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like Myke said, the materials and where they're placed and how is really important. I come back to the basic fire triangle that for combustion, you need heat, fuel and oxygen.

So how is the design ensuring that there's enough of those three ingredients that air can move through it so that there's enough fuel loading, meaning timber usually, that's going to burn at the key points and provide heat where you need it around structural elements to make it fall over. And yeah, you can sort of manage and try and anticipate where the heat's going to go by where you place big piles of timber and that kind of thing. It's also really important ember safety in Australia.

There's a number of thoughts from a number of people of what is appropriate and what's not. And thinner, smaller things can produce more embers. So I usually have the rule of anything skinnier than your thumb could be getting towards something that can throw a lot of embers out.

So thin ply, if it's less than nine mil or six mil, can start throwing little chunks out that actually have enough energy in them to cause problems. So yeah, with the heat management, what is the design shape? If something's shaped like a bonfire or a pyramid, it's going to burn very well.

I've built a tesseract in Tassie for the temple last year that had these big wings that came out of the center cube. So I was really worried about getting enough heat to these wings, knowing that the center is going to burn really well, but I didn't want to be left with this awkward four wings that might not be burning. So I set up a system of tension cables inside to ensure that it was going to fall into the fire and made sure that I piled enough wood around these wings that was going to burn.

Even putting a little bit more on the upwind side, knowing that the heat would rise, be pushed by the wind and need more heat on that side because the downwind side, that'll get more heat from the fire from any wind that's there. So yeah, there's a little bit to it. And there's a lot of nerds out there that have thought a lot about this and just reaching out and asking questions is great.

[Stevan] (1:00:56 - 1:01:13)

Can I quickly ask Simon about the effigy burn at Aurora this year, how it was more like a flat kind of effigy, low to the ground with the burn as well. What were some of the lessons or some of the things that you observed from that burn?

[Simon] (1:01:13 - 1:02:13)

Yeah, that was a great effigy. It was a thylacine sort of curl laying down on the ground and there were some really good things about it. There were some things that I wasn't as keen on it.

It made it very accessible. So when it's existing there on the paddock and people are coming and engaging with it, it's right there. So you can be a part of it, touch it, have this really close connection for it.

It didn't have that moment where something collapses or falls. And I think that is an important part of these fire sculptures to think of the experience that we're going to have collectively around it. And the structure collapsing or something falling, I think is a really impressive display of what the process is about, is seeing this thing burn beautifully and then collapse into the ashes.

So yeah, thinking about that and the spectacle I think is important.

[Stevan] (1:02:13 - 1:02:33)

Yeah, that's great. A lot of people actually anticipate, they hold their breath for like 10 minutes or 15 minutes and then when the structure does collapse, it's the whole emotions coming out as well. So yeah, you're right.

It does show the theatrics and the power of the burn of the structure.

[Bea] (1:02:33 - 1:03:40)

So on that note of talking about the showiness, if you like, or the spectacle of it, I wanted to talk a little bit for a moment about how we light them as well. Because one of my favorite things that I've seen in recent years at Underland was the frog effigy, where it was lit because the frog effigy had this long tongue that rolled out and that was the wick that they used to light it. And so it ran right up the tongue into the frog's mouth and then sort of lit it up from the belly.

And it was really very clever. And the other one that I was very impressed with was when we went to Kiwi Burn in 2025 and the huge effigy that was built there. It wasn't just a burn, there was like a whole light show involved with it, with fireworks and all sorts of things.

And it had been built and designed in such a way that at different stages of the burn, different fireworks would go off or different effects would go off at different points as it burned. And for me, that was really impressive. So Lumos, I wanted to have a chat with you about different things that we can think about designing into fire art builds to get that kind of spectacle and that kind of showiness in either how we light it or how it burns.

[Lumos] (1:03:41 - 1:08:14)

Yeah, well, I mean, when you light it, there can be a ritual involved. Quite often, a bunch of the builders will be involved in that ritual in setting fire to it. And just as a quick jump back, for example, plywood.

We often use plywood because it has great strength and we've gone on and off with plywood over the years at Kiwi Burn. Recently, we got caught out because the plywood had a very thin veneer on the outside to make it look pretty. And as the thing burnt, that thin veneer peeled off and in the vortex of the heat, started throwing up lots of lovely embers up into the sky.

Now, depending on the size of your fire and how much energy that fire has got, there is some YouTube footage, for example, of our Templar transition in 2011 and this entire 2.4 by 1.2 meter sheets of plywood flying in the sky from the heat of the vortex. These things go lifting up into the sky and they're spinning around and they come crashing to the ground. Fortunately, all happens downwind.

And the norm is that we discourage people from being downwind. Usually, it's just the embers that are falling. In this case, it was entire sheets of plywood that were falling from the sky.

So it's like, yeah, we're creating a lot of heat because we want this thing to be fierce. Then bear in mind, you can put enough vortex energy in there to throw lots of things up into the sky. And generally, what goes up comes down.

It may or may not still be burning when it comes down. So lots of camps downwind of the effigy in the Temple over the years at different burns have suffered holes in their roofs and structures. So yeah, always bear that in mind.

But you can get quite fancy. We have at KiwiBurn, one of our technicians who's very involved as a pyrotechnician has over the years used various other liquids and gases that would come to action at various parts of the burn. We can run a hose up into the side of the thing and we can pump LPG into parts of it at certain parts of the burn, turn the tap on.

Now we've got LPG burning and LPG when it's just burning in the open like that, it's just a large barbecue type situation. So we can add extra flames to areas, but also we can add colours by adding various other solvents, which unfortunately, from the point of view of handling them, you need to know what you're doing because in general, pretty coloured solvents are actually somewhat toxic. So be careful with handling them, but you can add interesting colours.

We've had situations where there was a bath suspended up inside the structure. And once the pieces of timber holding that bath fell away because they burnt through, then the bath dropped its load of flammable liquid into the fire to produce a bath, a huge big flame that was happening in there. So the designers can as part of the, well, what's the show going to be?

Because the effigy burn is a serious show and we can, how can we add to that excitement? What can we do to build up that excitement? Because that's the big thing for Saturday night.

We've got this big party all working around the fact that we're setting fire to this thing that we've had for people to look at and play with, and now it's going to burn. And it wants to be an exciting thing that people will remember for many years. So, wow, you remember that effigy of the whatever and how it burnt and sometimes how it didn't burn.

Sometimes we've had things that have failed because when we were hobbling our structure, we cut 29 of the 32 uprights that were holding the sink up in the ground. And the last couple were never cut or hobbled. So they didn't burn.

You can add, for example, you can add wax and we've used wax. You dip Pessian in liquid wax, and then you now have something that you can bind to key areas where you want the fire to grab hold and to burn through a key part of your structure when you want it to burn down. But as they found at Blazing Swan last year, wax has a very low melting point.

It also has a very low self-ignition point. So you can melt the wax and it'll happily turn into a liquid and then it happily becomes a gas and it happily self-ignites at a comparatively low temperature, which is why when they burnt their church of belligerents last year, there is a huge ball of flame comes out in the roof literally as an explosion because all that wax that they'd placed in there now vaporized and now just self-ignited and produced a very exciting thing. And it had potential.

[Myke] (1:08:15 - 1:08:18)

Best burn ever. Best burn ever.

[Lumos] (1:08:19 - 1:08:26)

Yeah, well, burning churches is always fun, but that had the potential to be a bad thing.

[Myke] (1:08:27 - 1:08:32)

It did, but it was edgy, but absolutely perfectly executed.

[Bea] (1:08:33 - 1:08:43)

Simon, were you talking at the pilot burn about lighting the effigy using a burning arrow? Is that you who was talking about that?

[Simon] (1:08:43 - 1:08:47)

No, it's not me. I'm aware of people that have done that.

[Bea] (1:08:47 - 1:08:59)

Do you or Myke, do either of you have any other examples of lighting effigies or doing fancy pyrotechnics or how to get that spectacular display happening?

[Myke] (1:08:59 - 1:09:48)

Once we burned with Rusty, we used LPG and we had some copper tubing that we fixed to the main supports. So we did fill the temple with a bunch of driftwood and fall from the forest and things to get a bit more heat in it, because it was very sparse. But we did use LPG to get the main supports hot and started.

And then once we got the innards going, eventually you take the LPG away and it just lets it go. But yeah, that's what I learned is that it needs to be a lot more dense. And if you're building it, it has to last a week, not 10 years.

And I think I might have over-engineered it a little bit for a couple of temples I did. So yeah, we do need a bit more accelerant to get it going.

[Lumos] (1:09:49 - 1:10:58)

Blazing Swan in 2025, for their temple, they had three flaming arrows, which they attempted to shoot at the target, which was doused in a good amount of petrol. And all three arrows actually missed. So the backup was implemented, which is that one of the fire crew jumped out, grabbed the arrow and threw it into the ignition point.

And it happily then burned from there. Quite often we will use a combination of petrol and diesel, sometimes 50-50, petrol-diesel blend. That's a secret we learned from our fire.

Our fire crews, if you want something to burn solidly, but burn fast, it's a great liquid to use. And I've even seen the firemen with a structure that was slow to ignite because everything was wet. Just grab a 20-litre can of petrol.

Somebody gave it to them, a 20-litre plastic container of petrol, and he just heaved it into the fire. And that soon got things going. The plastic melted, the liquid came out very quickly, turned into a fiery emblem.

And yeah, so there are elements of liquids and gases that we can add as long as we're talking to experts who know what they're doing.

[Bea] (1:10:58 - 1:11:24)

Yeah, probably not a good idea to just use petrol, however, as we've learned. And on that note, I wanted to move to safety issues. So I know we've talked about some safety issues already, but I'd love it if you could tell us the time when you needed to deal with a safety issue.

So what happened and how you resolved that? So I might start with Simon this time.

[Simon] (1:11:24 - 1:13:21)

Yeah, mostly these come down to structural issues, wind being one of the big ones. So we've got to consider how wind affects our structure. We know that it's going to be built and standing and have people engaging with it for maybe a week, maybe even two weeks.

So it's got to be solid, safe and strong. So I have had to put in additional bracing and supports after seeing the wind really pick up and move things in ways that I wasn't expecting. So having a bit of a kit of like some thin wire and whatnot, if it's not where people can reach and going to be a trip hazard to increase structural integrity.

We've then also got to consider this really strong, awesome thing we've built. It's got to be weakened so it actually falls. So the temple last year, we weren't sure if we're going to be able to burn anything.

So we had a ritual or process in mind for the effigy and temple that we could do in case we couldn't burn it. Mine was that everyone, the whole community would walk through this portal together and cross a threshold, but that means it needs to be rock solid and super strong. So I over-engineered it and knew that there's no way this is going to burn well.

And if I don't massively alter it, not just be this stick standing, like we were saying, burning for hours that just won't fall over and nudging with a pole and they still don't come down. So I went to town on it with circular saws, drills, drilling holes, putting candles in these holes. And it got to a point where as part of the burn planning meeting that I was like, beyond this point, and I'll put up these barriers, no one can go in it but me because it's not safe for human occupancy.

And I'm silly enough to still be crawling around and creeping around. And you can't stand on that joist, but you can stand on this one. So yeah, considering how that will look in the process for it.

[Bea] (1:13:21 - 1:13:24)

Yeah, that's great. Thanks, Simon. Lumos?

[Lumos] (1:13:24 - 1:15:06)

Okay, so my first kiwi burn, 2008. If you go on YouTube, you'll find an awesome thing called Kiwi Boom. Fireworks were used to ignite the effigy and the perimeter, I was part of the perimeter crew and I was about 10 metres maybe from the, probably a bit less than that, from the centre of the effigy.

It was a man and he'd been sitting down all week and he stood up and from his throne and what they didn't tell us was that the wooden box that was the throne had a open can of petrol inside it. So you see a firework thrown at it and you go, nothing happens, nothing happens. And the third time this whole thing just explodes because the whole area is obviously covered with petrol vapours, looking for a source of ignition, they got it and bits of timber went flying well past me into the audience.

And fortunately, only one person got hurt. And ever since then, it's like, okay, we need proper perimeters. We need to, okay, how high is this thing?

We start on the outside edge and we go at least three times the height and then we go, okay, now it's going to be a really hot burn. Now let's go another couple of times the height just to get us away because we don't want people getting cooked. And I've seen several examples of, yeah, if it gets hot enough, then people start wanting to Unfortunately, that means that the fire perimeter crew have to be careful because quite often we put them in nice plastic Ivers jackets so that they will melt onto their backs, which is why I never use them.

I always use cotton and wool, but yes, this thing is going to get hot. So bear that in mind in your plan. Always better to be a little bit further back just in case.

[Bea] (1:15:06 - 1:15:13)

And that is the problem with just using petrol, right? It's the fumes that explode, not just the liquid. And that's the issue.

[Lumos] (1:15:13 - 1:16:16)

Yeah. And that's not just petrol. Most of those flammable liquids we use, it's not the liquid itself that will burn.

So if you've got, for example, kerosene or whatever fuel that fire spinners use, isopars and things like that, the liquid itself is not flammable. The liquid has to turn into a gas, which then becomes flammable. So you can actually take a burning fire prop and you can throw it in the bucket of fuel and nothing happens because the fuels we use require 50 to 60 degrees Celsius of heat before they will vaporize.

So you need to know what are my flash points, what are my self-ignition points, those kinds of numbers, because they're very important to whatever we're trying to achieve. So it's always thinking, if you don't know what you're doing, ask somebody, because there are people who know these things. There are people who have done stupid things and learned from them.

And there are people who have survived things going wrong. So it's like, don't do these stupid things, ask somebody, and hopefully they are able to give you a good answer. If in doubt, ask two people and see if you get the same answer.

[Simon] (1:16:16 - 1:16:23)

Yeah, and we want to be making new mistakes, you know, so then we all learn. We don't want to repeat, you know, mistakes that they made in the past.

[Bea] (1:16:23 - 1:16:30)

Yeah, that's a good point too. Myke, do you have an example of when something went wrong and you needed to resolve it? Want to talk us through what happened?

[Myke] (1:16:31 - 1:17:18)

A couple of things happened on one of my temples. There was some communication breakdown and the main support was shorter than it needed to be by a third. So I wasn't able to bury as much of the support in the ground without making the temple too short to walk underneath.

And then we got a one in a hundred storm and the temple started to list to the side. So we're worried the whole thing was going to fall over. And yeah, burners being burners, suddenly riggers appeared and straps appeared and rope appears and we're hammering things and ratcheting things.

And, you know, I saw the fastest trucker hitch I've ever seen and yeah, got it straightened out. But yeah, it was quite an exciting moment there for 15 minutes. I'm not sure if this whole thing's going to come tumbling down.

Yeah, that would have been fun.

[Bea] (1:17:19 - 1:18:04)

So I have one more question that I'd like to throw at you guys, which is it's around challenges. What kinds of different challenges have you experienced at different burns, especially when it comes to building large or burnable art? And I'll give you an example.

So at third degree, we have a three metre height limit on burnable art because we're in a national park. And secondly, we're only allowed to have one burn scar. So often the effigy is built in place, but the temple needs to be built somewhere else on the paddock and then transported to the burn scar.

So it needs to be portable or at least able to be picked up by a bunch of people and transported over to the burn scar. So have you encountered or are you aware of it at your own burns or at any other burns, any particular challenges that you might face that you need to be considerate of?

[Lumos] (1:18:04 - 1:19:15)

Yeah, again, Kiwi burn might have been 2008 or 2009. And in those days, the effigy would burn and then we picked up, in this case, the temple was a series of almost like wooden tents that had been built, pyramid type tents. And we picked those up and we carried those and we threw them onto the fire that was left from the effigy because it had to burn on the same night.

It was really weird from the energy point of view that we've just done the effigy and now we're chucking the temple on top of it. But yeah, it was because we were only allowed to have a single scar. That's what we've been given permission for.

It was count the land and we'd laid down some soil on top of everything that would be burnt and that would be minimal scarring on the site. And so it's like, yeah, you have to work within those limitations. Thinking about it afterwards, we probably didn't do the best job of what literally grabbing those temples, pulling them apart and then just heaving them onto the fire.

But in those days, we didn't know any better. You learn and you can do a better job next time with some of these things.

[Myke] (1:19:15 - 1:20:55)

Yeah, I would chime in there that the weather and the elements really come into play when you're building large art. So there's a couple of parts there. One is, how many people do I need to build this and how much time do I have?

And if you figure you need four people for four days, you probably need a crew of six or seven. And certainly in Nevada, where it's in the desert, less so in our national parks that are quite cushy, but sometimes it's zero degrees or it's really, really cold and during the day, it's really, really hot. So just staying alive in harsh environments can be hard.

You need to be fed, you need to be watered, sunscreen, etc. And then you're going to try to work a 14-hour day, tools, power, all that sort of stuff. And now it's raining.

Do you have a plan for if it rains for 4 days before the event opens? How do you build that? How do you keep your tools dry?

So hot, cold, wet, dry, wind, all these things come up. So I think we're talking about earlier, you build it modular and transport it to site and do the finishing touches on site. That's a great way to do it.

And it counteracts some of that stuff. But if you're trying to build the thing from scratch on site, really take that into account. One or two of the crew members win the lotto and wander off or things happen and if you show up and you've got a Sawzall and an angle grinder, suddenly the 2 batteries are flat and someone's got to run back to town and it's a 3-hour journey to do that loop.

So yeah, when you get out there, it's not just Murphy's Law. It's just just plan for doing about half the amount of work that you need, because it's hard, it's harsh, it's cold, wet, all those things.

[Bea] (1:20:55 - 1:21:48)

And I think that's a really good point about tools, making sure... Just planning, making sure your tools are charged before you get in the car, making sure... I know I'm a little bit anal, so I have everything in boxes that I label with a Dymo labeler.

So that's really easy for people when we're unpacking the trailer to go, all right, that's for the facade, that's for the main build, that's for the theme camp infrastructure, whatever it is, so that people know exactly what needs to go where. And so I can also remember that. And I think that that's actually a really important thing as well, is to make sure everything's charged, you've got everything that you need, you've got your pack list, you've got everything sorted, so it's easy when you get there.

Because I find that otherwise, it's very daunting. You get there and your trailer's full of shit and you've got to pull it all out and work out what things are for what thing to go where, especially when you're running a theme camp and building an artwork and trying to do multiple things. So that planning and organization is really important.

[Myke] (1:21:48 - 1:21:51)

And lots of snacks, because there's no way you're stopping for eating.

[Bea] (1:21:51 - 1:21:58)

Yes, snacks. Yeah, absolutely. Snacks and hydration and sunblock.

I've been sunburnt many times. Simon, sorry, you were going to say.

[Simon] (1:21:59 - 1:22:30)

Yeah. And having that plan that's easy to communicate and some organization really plays into empowering others to become a part of the process when it's very easily communicated. They're not having to ask you every two seconds, oh, what about this?

What about that? And it can feed into giving people a bit more agency and autonomy to collaborate on it, which in the long run is going to reduce your workload and just make for a way more successful project overall.

[Lumos] (1:22:30 - 1:22:55)

Yeah. And make sure you've got people who are looking after or keeping an eye on each other because we will work too hard and then we will collapse because we haven't drunk today or we haven't eaten since yesterday. And so having some people who are just constantly checking up on you because, yes, we get caught up in the heat of the moment and we don't take time for ourselves.

We just push it too hard and then the human body starts failing.

[Bea] (1:22:55 - 1:23:20)

That's actually a role that I have in my theme camp is well-being lead, to literally do that crew well-being to go around and make sure everyone's drinking, eating, taking breaks when they need to, et cetera. And that's actually really important when we're building the theme camp. We always build large, large artworks to go at the front of the theme camp as part of entrance way.

So it's always quite a mission. And so, yeah, it's useful to have that as a specific role within the theme camp.

[Lumos] (1:23:20 - 1:23:27)

Yeah. Especially as you're going to be using power tools and power tools and tired people don't generally go together very well.

[Bea] (1:23:27 - 1:23:36)

What could possibly go wrong? I think that's all the questions I have, Steve. I don't know if you have more you want to throw in, but thanks guys.

That was really, really awesome chat.

[Stevan] (1:23:37 - 1:23:59)

Yeah. KiwiBurn this year had a contingency plan for the effigy and the temple. The weather wasn't too great this year at KiwiBurn.

So the contingency plan was almost executed, I think. But luckily they had a burn and that's something that I guess for us in the future, this is something we have to consider is what happens if we can't burn, a dismantling plan, something like that.

[Lumos] (1:23:59 - 1:25:32)

Is there a dismantling plan? Sometimes the plan is we have permission from the landowner that we can leave it there and we can come back in three months time and set fire to it and then clean up our mess. Yeah.

What is the plan? You hope to never have to implement the plan B of taking it apart because taking it apart is not going to be easy. It's always going to be slightly risky too because you're doing a demolition job on a thing.

So it's got heights involved and potentially bad things can happen. We did have an exciting potential crisis for our effigy KiwiBurn this year. The structure was effectively, you'd think about it as a large lollipop on a pole and something went wrong and the lollipop collapsed to the ground when it wasn't supposed to.

It was supposed to stay upright on its guy ropes and burn in that way, but it didn't. It collapsed to the ground and fortunately nobody got hit by this large collapsing structure, but it did come close and frighten a few people. So it's like, okay.

It was a new design technique that they'd trialed, which was basically put the large lollipop up and then build this thing around it and then practice just winching it up on a pulley system that would go all the way up the pole to the top and they'd got that sussed. They had that up and down a few times while they were doing work on it. It saved having to do lots of work at big height because all the work was done to low height and then effectively you just pulled the rope and the piece went up the pole and looked quite cool.

But yeah, bad things can happen when you least expect it. So always bear that in mind.

[Bea] (1:25:32 - 1:26:04)

Well, I think it's a good point because in 2023 burning seed rekindle, we had quite a large effigy built on site that was intended to burn, but unfortunately the RFS pulled the fire permit the day that it was due to burn. So we weren't allowed to burn it. And so that particular piece, the effigy builders needed to pull that down afterwards and relocate it.

So I think it is important also to have a backup plan for if you're not able to burn it for whatever reason and what you're going to do with it in that case.

[Lumos] (1:26:05 - 1:27:07)

Yeah. And there might be things you can do. Kiwiburn had one year and our permit to burn the effigy was pulled at the last minute.

So lots of phone calls were made and we actually got permission in the end that we normally have the Rural Fire Brigade who were there just to watch over things. In this case, we got permission that the Rural Fire Brigade, we could have our fire and before the Rural Fire Brigade were allowed to leave, they had to extinguish it so there was no embers at all left. That fire had to be completely dead.

And so we had our burn, we ran naked around it and then the Fire Brigade came and put the whole thing out. What we forgot to do was to communicate with our community that we had special permission to do for the Fire Brigade to put our fire out because many people were upset that the Fire Brigade put it out, not realizing that we actually weren't even going to be having a burn to start with. So it's like, yeah, if things change, make sure the community is aware of what is happening and why.

Because, yeah, we upset unnecessarily people on that one.

[Stevan] (1:27:08 - 1:27:25)

Okay. So I want to talk about funding projects, Bea. Would you like to talk about what does a successful application look like and what are some of the keys or tricks or tips when we're filing out these administration documents and stuff like that?

[Bea] (1:27:26 - 1:30:06)

Yeah. So one of the things that I've been aiming to do in my capacity as art lead for the last few years is to try to spread out the funding as much as possible because I do believe that the more art we can fund, the more art it produces, which is great. But that comes with its own set of challenges because at the moment, a lot of the burns in New South Wales are quite small.

So we're either rebuilding or they're fairly new. So there's not massive budgets for art, right? So a lot of the really big burns that we're talking about, the big burnable art, the big large scale art does actually require fairly large funding in order to be able to pull that off.

So when you've got a big burn like Burning Man, they've got a big budget, they can invest in art. That's fantastic. But at the moment with the New South Wales burns, we've got very small budgets.

And so what I'm trying to do is try to encourage as many people as possible to bring something to build art. So we distribute it in different ways. We don't really do large grants at the moment because there just isn't the funding for it.

So we'll try and do some sort of medium sized grant to cover materials, for example, or encourage transport grants to bring along existing art that you might have already built in the past to bring that to the burns. And we try and get as many people as we can. And that makes it more accessible also for new artists, which is great to be able to step up and have a go.

But it does mean we don't get the big spectacular art at the moment because we don't have the budget for that. But when it comes to putting in your grant application, often the criteria that we're looking for is to look at how well does it meet those principles like interactivity, participation, collaboration, sustainability, reuse. We're looking for all of those sorts of things.

When you're building large art over three meters, we want to make sure you've got a safety plan, that you're understanding engineering, structural integrity. You should do a safety check when you get on site and install it. And we're looking for, you know, we obviously want to make sure that artists, when they're building, have a bump out plan so that they leave no trace.

If you're not burning your art, then you do need to have a pull down plan. You do need to make sure that it's coming home with you. But even the burnable art, making sure that once you've burnt it, you don't have any things left behind like all the screws and nails and things like that are taken out of the burn scar and not left behind.

So those are the sorts of things that we try to look for when we're evaluating. Sometimes we look also to see if the artwork that's being proposed for funding meets the theme for the burn itself. But mostly we're looking at those principles like around how interactive it is, how participatory it is, and whether or not it meets that safety criteria.

[Stevan] (1:30:06 - 1:30:11)

Does anyone else have any advice on how to apply for accessible art grant?

[Lumos] (1:30:11 - 1:31:16)

Yeah. I've applied for lots of art grants. I've been given quite a few over the years.

A lot of them have failed. As an artist, of course, you believe that your idea is really cool, but you wouldn't pitch it otherwise. So you think your art is the best thing out there.

And of course, you get turned down for funding and you kind of like, you get all depressed and sad because you're like, it was a really good idea. I really wanted to build the whatever it was. It's like, don't give up.

There are always other options. There are always other choices. Perhaps you can scale it back.

Most of the art that I've built, my personal art of mine has never actually burnt. It's always been things that I've taken away with me, art pieces. And many times they came back in the case of my various mutant art cars, they would come back a year or two later with another feature added with something different.

But don't be depressed by the art grant because that's life. They're not picking on you. It's just like there's usually too many choices and they have to draw the line somewhere.

So don't feel bad when you get rejected for your art grant. Keep trying. Never give up.

[Bea] (1:31:16 - 1:32:10)

I will say with a lot of grant funding as well, it's important to remember that within the burner community, especially the smaller burns, it's unlikely that you'll get the full amount that you're requesting as well, just because often it costs a lot of money to build large art. We know that it costs money to buy the materials unless you're really good at finding all the materials for free. However, a lot of the smaller burns simply don't have the funds.

So I think it's important to remember that. And it's good to have a plan for how you're going to get some additional funding if you need additional funding, maybe through some crowdsourcing or fundraising, or even if you're going to be self-funding your art. So I think that's important to think about as well, that you might have a grand idea, which is great, but you might not get all the funding that you need to execute that from one single burn.

[Lumos] (1:32:11 - 1:33:11)

Oh, I've never been able to get more than about 50%. If you're really, really lucky, you might get two-thirds the amount you need. So yeah, always work on the fact that it's personally going to cost you.

Artists are supposed to be hungry and have no money, because that's part of being an artist, is that you're broke and you spend all your money on art. But you have to have the pain to become an artist. It doesn't come easy.

We don't have very many people throwing around large amounts of money at us, unlike Burning Man, who do get some people with large amounts of money who will happily throw hundreds of thousands of dollars at an art grant, so that they can brag about it with their other rich friends that, oh, I gave $100,000 to an art project. And the other guy goes, huh, I gave $200,000 to this art grant, and we can brag about that. Whereas no, we don't have that in our end of the world.

If you're doing well, you might get 50 or 100 bucks from various people, various friends, to help you on your way. That's just part of being an artist.

[Stevan] (1:33:11 - 1:33:30)

Should we take a break? Cool. Okay.

Welcome back. Let's talk about Pilot Burn, or should we call it Pivot Burn? Because that's what happened, didn't it?

I mean, our burn got cancelled, and we had to pivot from one site to another. Epic renegade, and I think it was a good save at the end. So what did you guys think of your experience of Pilot Burn?

[Bea] (1:33:30 - 1:36:41)

It was a pretty wild ride, with cancellations at the 11th hour. Well, I was halfway to site when I got the phone call to say it was cancelled. And when I got that phone call, I was pretty much in disbelief going, what are you talking about?

I'm halfway to site. So that was a pretty wild ride. And then so I spent a night up in the Blue Mountains at a friend's place.

And there was quite a few of us there doing a mad scramble on the phone the whole of Thursday, trying to find another site and coordinate, being able to move it to a new site. We didn't really get the green light to go ahead to the new site till about three or four in the afternoon. So by the time we got back, well, for myself anyway, by the time I got back down the mountains and all the way over to Wisemens Ferry, it was like seven o'clock and I was going, I'm just not going to make it to site today.

So it was like pull up in the hotel there and stay there for the night. So we kind of lost a day and a half really by the time we got to site in terms of setup and build. So it was pretty crazy.

But it was also really exciting, I think, to see how many people made it to the new site, given the turnaround, the short time frame, the comms that went out saying it's cancelled, it's back on. It was pretty impressive. I think we had 500 tickets sold and around about 400 people made it to the new site, which was pretty exciting to see.

And of the 20 or so artists that we had funded to turn up, more than half of those turned up as well, which was pretty good and made it to the new site. We also had quite a bit of Renegade art pop up on the new paddock, which was pretty exciting to see. So I think it was, all in all, a pretty exciting turnaround.

What I really enjoyed seeing was how, I mean, to begin with, it was a real emotional roller coaster because months and months of planning went out the window. We'd spent all this time and effort getting our site placement and our site plan just right and getting everything entered into the dust app and all of the activities and events, everything all carefully planned. And then we had to just throw it all out.

And we get to the new site, there's no plan, we don't know where anything's going to go. It's kind of chaos. Everyone's running around like crazy, trying to work out what to do.

We've got about four hours left to build everything, get everything ready to go. And it was pretty extraordinary to see how the community really came together. Everyone had to let go of everything and just go with the flow, work together, collaborate in real time.

And really, people did. People stepped up, they stepped in, they stepped sideways, they stepped wherever they needed to go to make it happen, which was pretty exciting. Obviously, the minute I got out of the car, I had people talking at me about where theme camp should go and talking at me about where art should go.

And I was like, I don't know, dudes, I've just arrived. So with the artists, I got them to literally just find a spot that spoke to them and set up. And it was amazing how well it worked.

Everyone just kind of intuitively found a spot that worked really well for their art. And even though it was a much smaller site than we had originally been intending, in many ways, that was actually probably the best thing that could have because it felt really close and cozy. It felt like an art playground and it just came together really beautifully.

So in the end, it was really successful, but it was a bit of a rocky road to get there.

[Stevan] (1:36:41 - 1:36:44)

And Lumos, you came all the way from New Zealand?

[Lumos] (1:36:44 - 1:37:49)

Yeah. I'd flown over to Australia just for the burn. And then we heard a rumor that had been cancelled.

So I sent a message to somebody and they said, yes, hold tight. And we're hoping it'll go ahead. And then we finally get the, nope, it's not happening.

And then we're kind of like, we're all sitting there going, well, to quote our friends from Dragon Burn, we're just going camping with friends. So yeah, then people are organizing, well, we're going camping. So let's go camping.

And then we hear that, okay, yep. At this stage, most of us have got time off work. We've got vehicles packed and we're just waiting for a destination to put into Google Maps and we'll be off.

So yes, it all did happen at the last minute. You can do that at a 500 person event. Would have been a bit different if it had been a 2000 person event.

Small things can pivot quite well. And community at a smaller event says, well, screw it. We're here.

Let's just make this thing work. And yeah, it was a very enjoyable burn for me.

[Bea] (1:37:49 - 1:39:08)

It was interesting to begin with, with the pivot, because it started off being quite fractured because the people that I was with up in the mountains started the conversation, started with, we've got four or five theme camps interested in doing a renegade. So we're going to go ahead and start looking for sites and planning that. I was having conversations with other theme camp leads who were also having the same conversation that they had three or four camps ready to go that were going to go and do a renegade.

So I spent the day trying to see it in going, maybe we should all try and come together. Maybe we shouldn't be doing this unless everyone can go and do it. So I didn't really want to split into multiple sites and multiple sort of events.

And so it really was, I felt really, it warmed my heart when the conversation turned towards perhaps we shouldn't go ahead unless we can find a site that accommodates all 500 ticket holders. And it was really exciting when we did manage to get the site secured that could accommodate everyone. And it meant that everyone was able to pivot in the same direction.

So I think that was actually a really big win as well. And pretty important for the community, given the history with C to be able to get everybody together. So I think that was a really quite powerful part of the pivot.

[Stevan] (1:39:08 - 1:39:10)

And for you, Simon, what was your experience?

[Simon] (1:39:10 - 1:40:34)

Yeah, it's pretty challenging, pretty frustrating. And there are a lot of emotions in a short term cancellation. It's off, it's on again.

However, I did really appreciate how it made everyone band together. I think adversity and challenges are an integral part of firms in Australia. For the most part, we're spared a lot of the challenges around landscape and difficulty.

We don't have the playa like they do in Nevada, which has heaps of challenges. So whilst I never wish for things to be difficult, I'm really grateful and appreciative when challenges arise, and we can overcome them together as a community, the growth and connection that that offers us. So I feel really grateful as a bit of a blow in to the New South Wales scene to be able to come in and connect and feel empowered to co-create this beautiful event.

And because no one really knows what's going on. So it can be anything we want it to be. And it really felt like that principle was lived and picked up by many people.

When things are a little bit more organized and things, there's a bit more of a structure. And it's like, Oh, no, this is how we're doing it. So there's a certain joy in the freedom of it can be whatever we want.

And we're just making this up. And it gives space for that creativity to flourish.

[Bea] (1:40:34 - 1:41:56)

And in many ways, I think it was the best thing that could have happened to be honest, because this pilot burn was always intended originally to be well, way back, it was originally intended to be kind of a working bee weekend for crew and leads to come together to reimagine the future of burning seed. Right. And it kind of grew to be from a sort of weekend camp out of maybe 200 people to be a sort of full burn of 500 people, because people were really, really wanted to burn really wanted to come together and be able to have that communal experience, bring their theme camp, you know, burn again, because we hadn't really had a big proper burn as part as seed for a long time.

And so it was interesting that it kind of grew into that. But in many ways, I think, you can't really reimagine what the future of burning seed might look like if you're still stuck with the way that we've always done things and with planning the way that we've always done it. And so in many ways, I think that that point you've just made Simon about the fact that it could be anything we wanted.

And we had to let go of all of that planning. And all of that history was, in fact, a really important cathartic kind of part of the process, in my mind anyway, for being able to go look what we can do. Look where we can go.

If we work together, look, look how we can make things happen in different ways. And so I think it was actually a really very powerful and transformative burn in many ways.

[Stevan] (1:41:56 - 1:42:43)

Last year, we had a renegade called Embers. That was like four weeks in planning that the org had, the people that organized the Embers last year. This time around, it was even a shorter time frame.

And to me, it felt like, or even probably even less, because for me, I was a refugee at one point, you know, like most of us didn't know where we were going, didn't have a home. So it was great to find a renegade site that was burner friendly. And the property owner really loved our community.

Well, she's also part of it. So shout out to Kate and Xander for allowing us to host it there. Yeah.

So I love the speech that Kate gave as well. It was really, like you said, you felt really intimate, human scale. Yeah.

And something that the community actually really needed.

[Bea] (1:42:44 - 1:43:13)

Yeah. I think it was quite healing in many ways for a lot of the community, even though it started off feeling like, oh no, here we go again. Or, you know, trust might be broken at the beginning when it was announced that it was canceled.

In the end, I think it felt very cathartic and healing for a lot of people and very much like, oh, wow, this is what we can do. This is what it's like to be a burner. And it was actually, I think, quite sort of unifying in many ways around that.

[Lumos] (1:43:13 - 1:43:29)

Yeah. Any kind of crisis tends to bring out the best in us as burners. We come together as a community because the community is what we believe in and we want this thing to happen.

So we will move heaven and earth to make it happen and we will work with each other to make it happen.

[Simon] (1:43:29 - 1:43:42)

Yeah. And that's something that I found super inspiring is that this is what we can do without a plan. Wow.

Imagine what we can achieve and, you know, when we've got months and all our planning comes to fruition.

[Bea] (1:43:42 - 1:43:43)

Yeah, absolutely.

[Stevan] (1:43:43 - 1:43:45)

Yeah, I kind of prefer. Go ahead.

[Bea] (1:43:45 - 1:43:50)

Well, it wasn't without its challenges either. I mean, can I talk about the effigy for a sec?

[Stevan] (1:43:50 - 1:43:51)

Sure, sure.

[Bea] (1:43:52 - 1:48:03)

So I accidentally became the effigy lead and Warren accidentally became the fire art lead because TJ was originally fire art lead and he was building the base for the effigy. However, with the challenges that happened at the Kapiti site, which I wasn't there, so I'm not 100% exactly what happened, but TJ packed up and went home and he took with him the base of the effigy that he had built. And we didn't have any fire gear, any fire safety plan, any plan at all, basically, on the new site for fire.

And also we had been instructed by the property owners that they didn't particularly want the big fires. So we could use the campfire circle that was already there, but that was about it, right? And if we were doing big fires, we had to keep them out of the road as well.

So we would have had to do something on the other side of the bridge, which was a bit tricky. And so it honestly felt a bit impossible to begin with. I didn't find out that TJ had gone home until Friday evening.

So we had less than 24 hours by that stage until the burn was meant to happen. No plan, no fire gear, no effigy base. It was always intended to be a communal build in that TJ was building the base and then we were going to get everyone involved in building on that to create the effigy.

However, with no base at all and no materials to build anything new either, I had a little panic moment going, damn, there won't be an effigy fire at all. We're not going to have anything. So Warren and I did a little brainstorming quite early in the morning on Saturday morning and came up with this idea of inviting everyone to create their own little mini effigy to put in the fire and build it that way.

So it was a really interesting experiment, to be honest, in inviting everybody to create their own little effigy. And we set up an effigy making station on Saturday, invited everyone in on the advice of Lumos and Warren. We made them less than a metre tall so that we would be able to fit everybody's little effigies into the campfire space without causing too much in the way of risk.

And I was really excited to see people kind of embrace that idea with a fair bit of enthusiasm and some creative spirit and really get into that. People were coming up and measuring their creation against my hip, which was really fun to see if it was a metre or less tall. Some people made little tiny things.

Some people made like one person made like a creature riding a broomstick. Some people made like little deer creatures or little animal creatures. So it was really interesting to see how everyone kind of got into creating their own version of an effigy.

And then it was interesting. Again, we had a very quick, like literally it was half an hour to maybe an hour planning how we were going to build this fire and how we were going to do it. So it was all very rushed and it was a little bit, shall we say, wild and loose.

There wasn't really a lot of planning that went into the fire itself. It was kind of done very last minute. So it was a little bit crazy and not particularly a little bit risky, but it was, I think, a really interesting experience for everybody.

So everybody was invited to put their effigies into the fire before we lit it. And it was really nice to be able to kind of introduce the effigy as being a completely 100% communal build that would never have happened if that community hadn't come together. Even though it didn't look like much, it was actually quite meaningful for a lot of people.

And so the burn itself, which with the exception of the incorrect fuel, went quite well. And I think what was interesting is that we got some feedback from people who were there saying that they'd never really experienced such a small, close-knit communal fire that felt so kind of like a shared experience before. And it felt really intimate and powerful for them to experience something like that at a burn.

So I think that was really nice to have that feedback. And we had similar feedback on a Sunday night with the Temple burn, which was also a similar small-scale fire. So I think there's something in that to think about as well, that there's something different about a smaller, more intimate burn than the big showy spectacles as well.

[Stevan] (1:48:05 - 1:48:10)

Yeah. While it was small, it was still big enough for the nudie run, the naked hippie run to take place.

[Bea] (1:48:10 - 1:48:15)

There were a few of us who did that. Yes. We couldn't fit a lot of us, but there was a few. Which was fun.

[Stevan] (1:48:16 - 1:48:34)

Yeah. I think my favourite now is probably renegades.

It's a little sub-genre of burns that I love now, renegades. But are renegades disruptors? Are they good for the community?

Because if we're keeping having renegades, yeah, are renegades disrupting the burns?

[Lumos] (1:48:36 - 1:49:06)

Well, definitely there were some people at Pilot Burn or Pivot Burn who hadn't been to a burn before. And the ones I talked to had a positive experience. And there were certainly plenty of burners who were like, I'm hanging out for a burn.

I've been waiting for a burn for too long. I want my burn. I need my burn.

And so it was like, yeah, there weren't a lot of choices. It was pivot or nothing. So yeah, go pivot.

Go renegade.

[Bea] (1:49:06 - 1:50:56)

I think the challenge, certainly in New South Wales, since 2019, which was honestly when Seed reached its peak at 5,000 people, has been a number of things. So we've had COVID, we've had fires, we've had conservative governments cracking down on festivals, changing rules, making it harder and harder to create festivals. We've got cost of living crisis, people not being able to afford tickets, not going out to events anymore.

And I think it's become harder and harder to put on large scale events. We've also had multiple attempts to kind of reboot Seed after the great schism, as I like to call it, where we've had fractures in the community, we've lost skills, we've lost people. So there's been multiple attempts to reboot it as well.

And I'm wondering whether the renegade, what the renegade burns are teaching us is exactly as Simon said before. Imagine what we can do. We can do amazing things without all this planning, without all this admin, without all the bureaucracy and the way that we've done things in the past when we're agile and small and we pivot fast.

So theoretically, if we can get it together to get that, I think what they're teaching us is that how do we do things differently? How do we be more agile? How do we sort of look at letting go of some of the ways of the past and do this?

But I think we have to start small and scale up. I think the mistake is trying to get big too big too fast and go back to where we were in 2019 straight away. I don't know that that's possible at the moment, especially in New South Wales.

And I think we have to try to prove to the powers that be, if you like, that we're able to kind of do this well and do this responsibly. And at the moment, I feel like that's going to take some time. And we're better off to do the smaller events for a while to build up that trust and that know-how and that capability again.

[Stevan] (1:50:56 - 1:50:57)

Any other thoughts, Simon?

[Simon] (1:50:57 - 1:51:56)

Yeah, I think more is more and giving people an outlet regardless of its origin is really important. Handing over the controls or having people feel like they can be part of it is super important.

So yeah, I don't think renegades detract. Often, all that sort of extra stuff that happens outside of a burn is where its real value happens. So with fundraisers and community events that are happening, that kind of thing.

So any event and collective gathering, whether it's renegade or a bit more something, is going to inspire people and just create that community because community is an active word. It requires active participation consistently. So having that consistent engagement to me is more important than whatever structure might have led everyone to being in the same place.

[Bea] (1:51:56 - 1:52:14)

Yeah, I think that's very true. And I know that there are people hanging out for a really big burn, right? They're really gagging for that.

They want the big burn. But I do feel like it is that community aspect and building trust in being able to come together and have the event in any form is actually really important.

[Stevan] (1:52:14 - 1:52:44)

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see where it leads the SBA community. It's very similar to the KiwiBurn community as well. With the SBA, they have a town hall on Sunday the 21st of June, 2026.

So it'll be interesting to see some of the development, some of the news and some of the background stories that came from PilotBurn. And I think it'll be an interesting conversation to have during the town hall.

[Bea] (1:52:44 - 1:53:42)

Well, I think the other thing about the Renegades and the smaller burns that have popped up since burning seed kind of ran into some issues is seed was always meant to be just that, a seed, right? And what it's done is it has, in fact, sprung new seeds in other areas. So we've had Underland and Third Degree and some other events like Neomania pop up since 2019.

And so I actually think that's a powerful thing. The people who started Embers last year are talking about keeping that going as well. So I think that's the idea that it does.

It allows people to take ownership of something, to figure out how to do it and then go, oh, cool, we can actually do this ourselves. And I think that's a good thing to have more smaller events pop up. But I do understand people are craving for a really big event as well.

So, yeah, I don't know what the answer is for that, but I just think it's going to take time.

[Stevan] (1:53:42 - 1:53:51)

Okay, let's end this. Let's try to land this plane and try to end it with some shout outs, some gratitude. So any shout outs of gratitude that you want to give out, have your say.

[Bea] (1:53:51 - 1:54:33)

Well, I do want to give a shout out to the SBA board, the current board. I started on the board two years ago when it was just first starting up and it was pretty chaotic at the time. And I think that the current board, the SBA board has gone through a number of different people and ups and downs over the last two years.

And I think the current board have done an amazing job pulling things together. And I think they are doing a really good job of communicating with the community and rebuilding the community and getting things happening. And I know it might feel like a setback that the pilot bird didn't go ahead as they'd planned, but I really think that they're actually doing a great job.

So I do want to give a shout out to the SBA board that's currently working on that.

[Stevan] (1:54:33 - 1:54:34)

Lumos.

[Lumos] (1:54:34 - 1:54:59)

Oh, I give a shout out to everybody who pulled out finger and made stuff happen because we're participants. We are not just here to watch a spectacle.

We make the magic and it requires all of us to do something, do our own little piece, make it all happen because that's when it gets really magical when we make these things. So yeah, well done. And let's just keep on making these birds.

Let's keep on having fun.

[Simon] (1:54:59 - 1:55:58)

Yeah, I'd like to give a shout out as well to PACT down in Tassie. Down there it's a super supportive, considerate, thoughtful crew of people that have been really empowering a lot of people in the community down there to get involved and bring their wild, wacky ideas to life. There's a real openness to evolution, which I think is really important that things can change and new people that may not have burned before often have great ideas to share.

And the concept of a proto-burner, the burner that doesn't know it yet, but are living all these principles, which by themselves, they're not unique to our culture, but the assembly and how they all come together are pretty beautiful to witness. So having that openness to take on inclusivity as a verb, a doing word that requires active engagement has been super beautiful and really powerful for me as an artist.

[Stevan] (1:55:59 - 1:56:12)

Yeah, we all met at Bonza last weekend. It was a very inspiring and great weekend to catch up. So Lumos, this was your sixth burner event you mentioned with Bonza.

[Lumos] (1:56:12 - 1:58:22)

Yeah, I classify Bonza as a burn event. So it's number six for 2026 and I'm on key to clock up 10 for the year. And yeah, now that I'm semi-retired and the dates, when I'm lucky, they fall into the right places.

So Bonza was another chance to get together, catch up with a bunch of my friends, fellow burners who I hadn't seen for a while. In some cases I'd seen them the week before, but in some cases I hadn't seen them for a year and it was really inspiring. And you go in there and for some of us, I was running at about 80% of energy levels.

By the end of the first day, I'm running at about 110 because we're talking and I'm hearing things and I'm like, oh, it's a really good chance to learn about some things and to talk to new people about new ideas. And really it was, yeah, it was a room, it wasn't a room full of people who wanted to go to sleep. It was a room full of people who had brilliant ideas and wanted to keep building our magic, keep growing it.

It was, from my point of view, very pleasant to see that I wasn't the only Kiwi there. Quite often I'm the only New Zealand rep there, but this time we had a whole bunch, which was really cool. Perhaps that means that that connection between New Zealand and Australia is growing.

That connection between our burns, we've got, this year in New Zealand, I did three burns. So we had ignition, Kiwi burn, and then Raglan burn. And you've got six or something, six or seven.

There's track six over here in Australia or four or five. Yeah. And all these connections, we've all got different strengths, talents, things that we've learnt and we're keen on sharing because we're burners, we're open source people.

We happily share these great ideas with one another and we can say, no, that one didn't work, but this really, this one was really good. And we can just keep growing, keep growing this. I think of the burn as a virus.

It passes by human connection. Most of us burn because somebody told us to, not because we saw it on an episode of the Simpsons or something. So yeah, we're, we're keeping on growing.

[Bea] (1:58:22 - 1:58:26)

I believe that they have had something on the Simpsons now about Burning Man.

[Lumos] (1:58:27 - 1:58:30)

Yeah, they have. But most of us were already there.

[Bea] (1:58:31 - 1:58:40)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to say, you're my inspiration. And when I hit retirement age, I plan to try and collect every single burn as well.

So there you go.

[Stevan] (1:58:44 - 1:58:54)

Can I just quickly go through the burn calendar? So some of the news that came out recently was Kiwi burn's theme for next year, moss and microchips. What do you reckon about that, Lumos?

[Lumos] (1:58:55 - 1:59:42)

Yeah, I haven't had a good chance. I found out about it a couple of days ago. It's interesting possibilities, moss and microchips.

Is that a connection between technology and nature? I'm not sure. I'm busy trying to write an art grant application and working out how I can, how I can wrap a description that fits the theme, because when you're submitting an art grant application, if you can somehow wangle your way into the theme, you gain another couple of points towards trying to get an art grant.

So it's like, yeah, how can I do that? I'm still not sure of my answer. I will think of, and I don't use AI to answer my questions.

I'd rather just use my own crazy thoughts. So it's like, yeah, how can I make this happen? It has lots of possibilities.

We will see technology, we'll see what technology can offer us.

[Stevan] (1:59:42 - 1:59:46)

So the other news is that nowhere is now named elsewhere.

[Lumos] (1:59:47 - 1:59:47)

Elsewhere, yeah.

[Stevan] (1:59:47 - 2:00:08)

And burn in the forest has become What If?. So these are very interesting developments there. So you never know.

I mean, seed could be something else as well. So we've got to think up a title for that. But a modifyre is happening this year.

The theme is transformation. Third degree is fifth element. And you've got underland threshold.

Now Aurora doesn't usually do themes.

[Simon] (2:00:09 - 2:00:17)

No, we're still, I guess, earlier in the journey. And yeah, a blank canvas can be a beautiful thing.

[Lumos] (2:00:17 - 2:00:18)

Can be your theme.

[Simon] (2:00:18 - 2:00:18)

Yeah.

[Stevan] (2:00:19 - 2:00:20)

Yep, Bea, did you have something to say?

[Bea] (2:00:20 - 2:01:30)

Yeah, I just want to come back to Bonza for a sec. I think that's the third Bonza that I've been to and it's always really inspiring. I really think that we have some fantastic people, you know, in leadership across Australia, New Zealand, even across Asia. It's always really inspiring to meet people, you know, meet other artery leads, for example, and hear how people do things at Blaze or hear how people do things at KiwiBurn or hear how people do things at DragonBurn.

So it's actually, I think, a really fantastic opportunity to come together and hear from other people in leadership positions, especially when we're talking about leadership in volunteer organizations or community building ideas and things like that. I think that's always really powerful. One thing I'd love to see, and I don't know if this happens, but it would be great if a lot of the conversations and ideas that come from Bonza were able to be with other people who don't make it to Bonza or who can't come because a lot of theme camp leads, for example, could really benefit from hearing some of the ideas, particularly around leadership and community building.

So I think it'd be great if we're able to share some of that information more broadly with theme camp leads and other leads who maybe don't come along to Bonza.

[Stevan] (2:01:30 - 2:01:35)

Yeah, you had the idea of building something like an artery centralised repository or something?

[Bea] (2:01:35 - 2:02:50)

Yeah, I'd love to see a centralised artistry register, artery register where we can share documents, share knowledge, share the way that we do things. We've written things like art guidelines for how to build big art on the paddock for Burning Sea. It'd be great if we're able to share that kind of information or see what other orgs have done so we can include that or share information around art grants and how we evaluate or assess criteria for art grants or even structures for how we give money out for funding and have some sort of opt-in centralized directory as well for who all the art leads are at different events around the world and who all the artists are so that if we want to call on a big fire art builder who's got lots of experience, we can look up a database and go, oh, cool, we know that this person has a lot of experience.

They're in New South Wales or they're in WA or they're in New Zealand or whatever so that we can then invite them when the events are coming up to say, hey, are you interested in applying or in building something for this? And same with any artist, really, anyone who's ever been funded or registered artwork, it would be great to know who they are so we can invite them and let them know when the art grant process opens. So I think if we had a centralized repository for that, it would be very helpful.

[Lumos] (2:02:51 - 2:03:05)

Just a place to just about all the teams in our bands, it's like, yeah, because we are, especially in New Zealand and Australia, yes, we are very close, but remember, we're not bonds now, we're burners of everywhere else that's not Europe or America.

[Bea] (2:03:07 - 2:03:07)

Yeah, that's right.

[Lumos] (2:03:08 - 2:03:09)

We're picking up more of Asia.

[Bea] (2:03:09 - 2:03:24)

There was always a little bit of secret squirrelness when I was involved with Seed earlier on and I think it's really good to be able to kind of have that centralized sharing. I feel like it's not really much point having secret squirrel stuff when it comes to these things. I think we should be sharing the information and all benefiting from it.

[Stevan] (2:03:25 - 2:03:27)

And most of us are attending multiple burns anyway.

[Bea] (2:03:27 - 2:03:29)

Exactly, or involved in multiple burns, yes.

[Stevan] (2:03:30 - 2:03:34)

Yeah, cool. Any other final thoughts before we end this episode?

[Simon] (2:03:34 - 2:04:32)

Yeah, one thought I had having attended Bonza was just how many clever, thoughtful, intelligent people are doing volunteer work to make this stuff happen and get off the ground. It's really easy to get frustrated, like the whole pivot burn situation is really frustrating and really hard to be on the receiving end of something like that.

A really big part of trust amongst our friends and whatnot is generous assumption, not assuming the worst and being able to assume that they were doing the best they can with what they had. So I think as a community, it's really important to just remember, there's a lot of volunteers working really hard so we can do this stuff. It's really tricky.

It's really challenging. It doesn't always go the way we hoped or planned. But if we can have that generous assumption and appreciation for all that effort, we're all better off.

[Stevan] (2:04:32 - 2:04:43)

Yes, well said. Great. Thanks, Simon, Myke, Lumos and Bea for joining the panel for this episode.

Appreciate all your thoughts and all your insights as well. Fantastic information.

[Bea] (2:04:43 - 2:04:44)

Thank you, Steve, for hosting.

[Lumos] (2:04:46 - 2:04:46)

Yeah.

[Simon] (2:04:46 - 2:04:47)

Thanks, everyone.

[Lumos] (2:04:47 - 2:04:50)

It's been great. Remember, you can now be famous in your own lunchtime.

[Stevan] (2:04:52 - 2:04:57)

All right. This episode's going straight to the pool room. So, cool. Awesome.

Good job. Thank you.

[Bea] (2:04:58 - 2:04:58)

Thanks, everyone.

[Lumos] (2:04:59 - 2:04:59)

Thank you.

[Bea] (2:04:59 - 2:05:01)

Nice to see your smiley faces again.

[Simon] (2:05:01 - 2:05:01)

Thank you.

Transcripts transcribed by TurboScribe.ai