There has been 30
years of Burning Man, with it's origins in
early anarchist years. Atkinson describes it today as an experiment in
collective dreaming. Every year around
August thousands of people for a single week power down their tech and
pilgrimage out into the Black Rock, Nevada Desert.
Their purpose?
To build and
anti-consumerist society outside the bounds of their everyday lives.
The entire
encampment of Burning Man can be thought of as one giant interactive art
installation driven by the participation of everyone in it.
What set it aside
from commercial art work is that anyone who makes work can show it.
None are sold there.
At the end of the week if the works aren't burned, artists have to cart them
back out and store them. It's a labour of love.
It's about
redefining arts value by the emotional connection it creates between the artist
and the audience, or the benefits it gives our society, or the fulfillment it
gives the artist themselves.
These are also the
questions that contemporary jewellery asks, The VGCJ explains contemporary
jewellery as that," which can be described as contemporary not merely
because of its recent date, but because of its engagement with a diverse range
of contemporary social, environmental, technical or artistic trends."
Any
piece of jewellery we create is contemporary because it is made today and it can fall within one or more of these terms,
it's not something that is exact, like everything in the universe it can
flow together.