The art and fire of Burning Man, in pictures

By Katia Hetter, CNN

(CNN) — Create a desert temple to whatever deity or ideals you hold true.

Learn how to spin fire, or to pole dance, or to make shrink art jewelry. (Or head to the festival’s Black Rock City College of Arts and Sciences where you can study “any subject matter, however imaginary.”)

Shake it off in a tutu dance party hosted at, naturally a grilled cheese pop-up restaurant.

Or build a giant sculpture of two people embracing and burn it down, as artists Kevan Christiaens, Kelsey Owens, Bill Tubman, Joe Olivier, Matt Schultz and the Pier Group did in 2014.

All of this and more — much more — takes place at the temporary city of some 80,000 people known as Burning Man, the annual gathering that is rising once again in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. Dating back to 1986, this year’s Burning Man starts on Sunday, August 27, and continues through Monday, September 4. (At its end, the city will disappear in keeping with its principle of “leaving no trace.”)

Some on-site preparations for this year’s Burning Man have been impacted by tropical storm Hilary in recent days, with high winds, rainfall and even flooding reported in Black Rock Desert. Access to the site for ‘burners’ (the nickname used by many regular attendees) arriving early was for two days limited to allow for the playa to dry out, as organizers wrote on social media Monday that, “large amounts of the playa remain either covered in standing water or damp & impassable.”

Work on the event’s famed “temple” building, which this year is called “The Temple of the Heart,” was also affected by the weather, as muddy conditions limited the construction process and pushed it behind schedule, those involved with the build wrote on Instagram.

The festival’s 2023 theme is “Animalia,” which the Burning Man website explains, “will celebrate the animal world and our place in it—animals real and imagined, mythic and remembered — and explore the curious mental constructs that allow us to believe that imagined animals are real, real animals are imagined, and that somehow, despite all evidence to the contrary, mankind is somehow not part of the animal kingdom.”

Named for the huge totem set on fire at the festival’s culmination, at Burning Man participants dedicate their time to making art and building community. That community is based on 10 principles written by Burning Man co-founder Larry Harvey, which include gifting (no commercial sponsorships or transactions are permitted on the festival’s playa), inclusion and civic responsibility.

If you can’t make the trip, check out the “Embrace” sculpture pictured above and click through the gallery to see more Burning Man from photographer NK Guy’s book, “The Art of Burning Man.”

This article was originally published in August 2015.

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