Burning Man
Burning Man is a festival that takes place once a year during the last week of August in the Nevada desert. It revolves around creativity and collective expression, encouraging participants to become physically and socially engaged in the formation of a temporary micro-society. For one week, a vast horseshoe-shaped campsite is established to host more than 80,000 people. At its center stands a 15-meter wooden effigy—the “Man”—which serves both as the symbolic heart of the community and a point of orientation within the nomadic settlement.

Over the course of the week, the event grows in scale and intensity as thousands of artists collaborate on installations, performances, musical events, and pyrotechnic displays. The desert’s expansive landscape makes it possible to realize works of a scale and ambition unimaginable in urban environments. The festival culminates with the burning of the Man and many other installations, a symbolic act of returning to nature what humankind has taken from it.

The Pyramid
I was part of a team of three carpenters who designed and built a 12-meter-high pyramid, created as an initiation temple for the Burning Man opera. The structure served multiple purposes: a projection surface for nightly rituals, a viewing platform over the desert, a shelter for performers, and a concert space for musicians.