Program Areas
Burning Man Netherlands provides infrastructural tools and frameworks to support our community in applying the ten principles in four interconnected program areas:
1. Arts
2. Culture
3. Civic Involvement
4. Education
These are four of the six program areas which were developed in 2011 by the six founders of Burning Man USA and their nonprofit and legal advisors, who were crafting the long-term vision for the new nonprofit which became the Burning Man Project. These are not distinct, independently operating programs. They are aspirational, and represent what they have been doing and what they intend to do. Each year they focus on certain areas more than others, but together they paint the bigger picture.
They want you to know that they’re thinking big about Burning Man’s potential influence on the world (we often talk about Burning Man’s 100-year plan), and we invite you to think big, too.
Arts Program
The Mission of the Arts Program of Burning Man the Netherlands is to change the paradigm of art from a commodified object to an interactive, participatory, shared experience of creative expression.
Activities in the art program may include facilitating creative self-expression by encouraging people to integrate art with daily personal and public life in ways that are interactive and collaborative, promoting social architecture, and providing opportunities for people to create and display mobile and wearable art (such as art cars, art bikes, and art clothing). BMNL will accomplish that through art grants, art exhibitions, art festivals, public art placement, directories and catalogues of art and artists who work in this genre, and by other means. Burning Man the Netherlands will collaborate with Burning Man (USA) in a mutually supportive manner.
Culture Program
Burning Man the Netherlands Culture Centers Program will establish and operate urban and rural cultural centers and spaces that incubate and showcase collaborative and interactive arts, culture, and community participation. BMNL’s Cultural Centers may be permanent or temporary, physical or virtual.
Activities that generate and preserve culture will include the establishing of a physical [ Freespace ] a Urban Cultural Center in the Netherland that will provide collaborative gathering and gallery spaces, classrooms, workshops, a library, archives, sites for ritual and ceremony, shared office space for multiple community- based non-profit organizations, and eventually a café and Burning Man museum store. The Urban Cultural Centers will be using as a model the [ Freespace ] organisation in San Fransisco. In the longer-term future, rural retreat centers, artist colonies, and camping sites may provide opportunities to generate interactive, collaborative community and culture in natural settings. This program will locate, evaluate, acquire, manage, operate, and maintain all Project facilities, sites, networks, and real estate, which will be developed and operated using innovative technologies and renewable energy.