Burners Without Borders is mobilizing bulldozers and volunteers to help with some of the hardest-hit areas from Hurricane Sandy. First stop, Massaquan, New Jersey, where BWB-directed teams are pitching in to help clear debris and enable residents to rebuild. Burning Man Project is now BWB’s fiscal sponsor, and gratefully accepting donations of funds on their behalf.

Please follow this link to donate:
https://co.clickandpledge.com/advanced/default.aspx?wid=60302

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Burning Man Project

Peralta Junction on Opening Day.   Photo: Peralta Junction Project

Ever wondered what might happen if artists joined forces with their community to turn an abandoned lot into something amazing? That question is at the forefront of the Peralta Junction Project, an experimental, carny-themed activation space based in West Oakland, CA, which seeks to take a grassroots approach to artful engagement and neighborhood transformation.

Sugar Skull Workshop by Michelle Ochoa and Rosalie Barnes with the the band, The Crane and the Crow, providing sweet sounds.  Photo: Jill Sanders 

Since the event opening on Oct. 4, which featured an outdoor film screening, Peralta has transformed the previously abandoned 24,000 square-foot lot at the intersection of Mandela Parkway and Peralta Street into an active community space filled with art installations, creative workshops, performances, micro-retail shops occupied by local artisans, Oakland-based food trucks, a tented gathering place, a pumpkin patch, and more. Produced by Commonplace Productions , One Hat One Hand, and a swell of volunteers, each week also featured additional programming – including the installation of Life Size Mousetrap on Saturday, Nov. 10 – creating a unique experience for event-goers week after week, through its closing on November 30.

Lower Bottom Blues Band.
Photo: Peralta Junction Project

In addition to pure awesomeness and alignments with our guiding principles – Participation and Communal Effort being big ones – what makes this project so special is its ability to be replicated and customized for different neighborhoods in the future. Urban spaces all over the world have their share of abandoned corners like this one in Oakland, just waiting for people to turn them into something wonderful. One of our many goals in sponsoring this project, in addition to assisting in workshop curation, is to create documentation that will help people pull off similar projects in their neighborhood in their own unique way.

The project continued to revolutionize weekends in this historically challenged neighborhood through its closing celebrations Friday, Nov. 30, 7-11pm. We are very proud of our support of Peralta in making magic happen!

More photos at our flickr. 

Some local kids adding one of the first contributions to the ArtisMobilus mural, envisioning what people would like to see in San Francisco’s Central Market.

October was a big month for arts engagement in San Francisco’s challenged Central Market district, with multiple events at the heart of them – 24 Days of Central Market Arts Festival, 2 Blocks of Art, and the Urban Prototyping Festival, to name a few. Of course, we can’t help but get involved – we love art and participation, both of which are much needed just outside of our front door! We worked with these events to make it all happen – thanks to many efforts from our team of incredible volunteers and volunteer performers. We look forward to many more.

ArtRobics dancing in the street.

Our activities began in September 2012, with performances from Gamelan X – who captivated passers-by and filled the streets and alleys with rhythm and dance. Just outside of HQ, at the corner of 6th and Market, community members painted a map of their ideal city on the side of portable mural ArtisMobilus. Across the street, the City of Awesome project, run by artist Todd Berman, gathered people together to create a community painting featuring participatory portraits created by kids and adults alike. Finally, ArtRobics got people moving in the street in a fun participatory combination of art, aerobics and disco.

On October 19, we participated in the second art walk, with performances from the Loyd Family Players, and the mobile mural was also completed.

The completed mural, touched by many, many local hands.

The next day was the San Francisco Urban Prototyping (UP) Festival, produced by the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts (GAFFTA). Like 24 Days of Art/2 Blocks of Art, UP also activated the space in Central Market, with particular focus on the 5M district  – a collection of blocks at the intersection of 5th St. and Mission. The event showcased a series of digital, physical, replicable, open source, documented, replicable, and affordable projects, all designed with the intent of improving San Francisco and cities with similar problems. We provided entertainment for festival-goers in Hallidie Plaza, featuring Gamelan X and Bad Unkl Sista.

The feedback on these engagements from our community has been phenomenal. We hope to keep working together to bring this kind of energy to Central Market. More fun work and play is on the horizon.

For more information on these events, visit:

24 Days of Central Market Arts Festival: www.centralmarketarts.org
2 Blocks of Art: www.urbansolutionssf.org/news_events/artwalk.html
SF Urban Prototyping Festival: sf.urbanprototyping.org

A rock star volunteer helps at the Leaf Your Trace crafting activity.

At Black Rock City 2012, in collaboration with Burners Without Borders, Black Rock Arts Foundation, Black Rock Solar and Burning Man Regional Network, we helped put together the Everywhere Pavilion – an open space where people can hang out and learn about our various community and outreach activities. The space takes different forms in different places, and each time we learn something new about our growing community.

On the Playa, we set up a large, shady open space on the Esplanade, filled with tables in the shapes of continents, where participants could escape the sun and relax. People also took part in our Leaf Your Trace activity, where they expressed the many different ways they uphold the Ten Principles off-playa through writing and decorating “leaves” (made from used file folders). The leaves were attached to posts placed on many different cities on our continent tables. By the end of the event, there were nearly 500 leaves creating a handmade forest, mapping the many ways that participants carry Burner spirit with them into their communities.

Our first leaf, created by Michael who came all the way from the UK. This leaf will forever be one of our favorites!

It wasn’t just Michael who came all the way from Europe – we had lots of visitors from Germany!

Early in the week, we had a small forest of visitors from all over North America.

>> More photos!

At Burning Man’s San Francisco Decompression, we all worked together to create a chill space serving tea and conversation. Friends and participants came by, sat on comfy pillows, and chatted over tea on a beautiful fall day. We met lots of newbies and got to work with some amazing volunteers we met on the Playa.

Guests relaxing in our pop-up tea house.

No matter what their path to getting to Everywhere, all of our guests expressed delight at getting to learn more about what we’re up to and how to get involved.

Learn more about our partners at Everywhere!
Black Rock Arts Foundation: blackrockarts.org
Black Rock Solar: www.blackrocksolar.org
Burners Without Borders: www.burnerswithoutborders.org
Burning Man Regional Network: regionals.burningman.com