Burning Man: Art in the Desert

For one week in August the Burning Man Festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert brings people together in a spirit of self-reliance and creativity. Art has become the defining feature of Burning Man, as the festival continues to be a testing ground for a growing circle of artists seeking engaged audiences. Their most compelling works are large-scale constructions that are burned at the end of the festival, and radically altered vehicles, or “art cars.”

Art at Burning Man, like the experience of being there itself, is a way of being outside routine existence: People return home rejuvenated and inspired to seek ways to express the spirit of the festival in their everyday lives. For more than a decade, A. Leo Nash has been creating a photographic document of this work, and in his photographs we see the wellspring of a new art movement.