I want to understand and explain the reasons for the infatuation
and success this festival creates: here in the middle Nevada desert and now at the dawn of the 21st century.
In these past years, I have continued to document my time at the festival. I have met and interviewed
several times its creator Larry Harvey, David Best has since become one of my best friends,
as well as a good number of other artists and participants.
I've been dividing my life between
California and France for 10 years. This country is as strange as it is fascinating. My relationship
with America evolves every day and this knowledge allows me to escape from the well-known
anti-americanism that has gripped France and other countries over the last few years.
The United States, a continent-country with 250 million inhabitants, does not just amount to its
Ubu-esque politics led by the improbable Bush administration. Nonetheless, no one can deny that the last decade has been rich in plot twists worthy of a soap opera or a B movie to say the least (such as the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger as senator of California in 2003), switching in no time at all from lies to cynicism and from stupidity to war. It's essential to understand just how important Burning Man is to the people who gather there in this context.
Today much more than in the past there is a need to have hope, to escape for a moment the toxic flow recycled to the point of nausea by a partial media dedicated to sensationalism. Yes, Burning Man is a means of escape, a Utopian bubble for some, a lung full of oxygen for others, and also a reflection of the world.