[About The Project]

CT: What is this book?
HK: It's a compilation of images and sounds captured over five years at Burning Man. It's a fully-sensory, audio-visual experience of what it feels like to be at the event. It uses images, poetry, essays and a DVD with an original sountrack to explain how the place is whatever you make it: a city of freedom and friendship. Freedom to express and live out dreams or fantasies; when people live that richly, they're open to friendship and community in its purest sense. From snapshots and snippets of sound, this book attempts to document experience and archive moments from this tremendous humanity festival.

CT: What is this event?
HK: Started in 1986 by Larry Harvey and Jerry James on a beach in San Francisco, Burning Man has grown to a world-renowned art event with more than 29,000 participants in 2002. Founded on the principles of participation and no observation, gift-giving and no commerce and "Leave No Trace" respect for the environment, a temporary city emerges like Brigadoon for one week every year - always the week prior to and including Labor Day Weekend - in the Black Rock Desert near Gerlach, Nevada. Approximately 50,000 people have been to Burning Man over the years, and although the awareness of the event is almost impossible to estimate, we imagine it to be a large and ever increasing number of people.

CT: Why produce this project?
HK: For posterity; to share how we’ve felt and what we’ve seen at Burning Man. It's important to record what's happening, because it's a very unique aspect of turn-of-the-century culture.

CT: Who might be interested in this book?
HK: First of all, the thousands upon thousands of participants who want to relive their experiences at Burning Man; who wish to visit their cognizance from a phenomenal time. People who are interested in culture and counter-culture or community. People who are interested in art, costumes, performance and fire. Art historians. Lovers of Nevada's Black Rock Desert.

CT: What does the book look like?
HK: Hardcover, 10" x 10" square. Most photographs don't run full page and often run several to a page. You can sit down and spend some time with this book. The DVD is attached to the inside back cover.

CT: What about the soundtrack?
HK: Sean's soundtrack for the DVD is so spectacular that we made a CD available seperately so that people could enjoy that in their stereo while they read the book or drive in the car.

CT: Why do it now? Isn't it too late?
HK: No. There are hundreds of thousands of images from this event that need to be seen. It may more likely be too early, as the book will only be more popular among future generations. Burning Man has been approached by the the University of California at Berkeley's Bancroft Library who wish to archive the organization's papers. The event is sure to be seen as a quintessential example of nascent 21st century culture. This may well be even more; the beginnings of a new twist in the evolution of culture itself.

CT: Has it been done before?
HK: There has been just one major published collection of Burning Man photography. This was by HardWired, the publishing arm of Wired Magazine, in 1997, capturing images from 1996 and even earlier. Drama contains images from 1996 to 2001, and will obviously be less stuck in a single medium. A combination of photography, poetry, essay and soundscape inspired by the phenomenon that is Burning Man has never before been published.

Focusing on art and community, Drama exposes a different side of the event than is usually reported--those who haven't attended will likely be surprised. We keep hearing the same comment: "Wow. Now I'd think about going to Burning Man!" Finally, with this book you can show your Mom why you spend summer vacation in the desert.

CT: How long did it take to produce?
HK: We spent over a year to make the book and DVD, not including the years spent photographing and cataloging.

CT: Why are you the right person to produce it?
HK: I've spent a lot of time collecting moments - quiet, still fiery moments - and feel an urge to piece them together, almost into a single perception. I can't not do this - I have to get it out.

Many people at Burning Man have the need and desire to express themselves at the event. I spend much of my time on the playa documenting what I'm experiencing while in the midst of the chaos; getting the feel of the event; the intensity of the fire. Many of the images are pure stabs at grabbing the illusion. But as much or more of my work comes after the event; bringing the images to life in shows and projects. I have been patiently collecting images and sound for 6 years and it was time to put it all together and finish a larger mixed media project. With a lot of help from a lot of friends, we did it!

CT: Did you have help?
HK: Seeking contributions from the entire Burning Man community, a team of more than 90 contributed and collaborated to the project, and a new company was formed in the process.

It all came together during the dot-bomb bust, and many of our team was unemployed while they worked with us over the last year. Like an early-phase Silicon Valley startup, no one was paid for their work, despite hundreds of hours each from many collaborators. Outside investors provided considerable funding required for non-labor production expenses and printing/pressing costs, though in dramatic (and stressful) fashion, the financing only came through at the last minute. Now we have the book complete, and are pushing with marketing and sales with hopes to sell enough copies to pay back the investors and begin to give something back to those who labored on this project as well as to begin another.

With so many people working together so hard for so long, it was inevitable that we would share many adventures and life changes together, including two weddings between collaborators, a heart surgery and other health problems, losing old jobs, finding new ones, travel to Singapore for printer press checks, and more. We became family to each other.