We are now accepting expressions of interest for the Temple and Effigy builds.
Email info@kindlearts.ca with your short proposals. A drawing or sketch and some background may be appreciated, along with a sense of cost. While we’ll look at all projects that are sent to us, if you don’t have a named team capable of building it and can’t build it yourself, it’s highly improbable that it would be selected over one that has a team.
As we would like to ensure applicants have adequate building time, please let us know as soon as possible but no later than the 16th of February if you are interested in the process. It would be best to hear promptly and then see followup documentation, so if you do begin to develop something, please email us.
PROCESS
(1) During the expressions of interest phase, we’ll hear from folks interested in building these structures, then share with everyone who has expressed an interest some details about what everyone has proposed.
(2) Then, if there are more than one expressions of interest, we’ll ask folks to confirm their application (which they may modify) either by filling out a form or sending us a final email of what they are proposing.
The 2024 application looked like this: https://forms.gle/9RuptptQ6KKxaZf86
(3) Standing production committees first qualify and then pick the Temple or Effigy submissions. These committees typically consist of the senior producers.
(4) Selected submissions are then informed. Submissions not selected sometimes enter the regular art grant process.
ABOUT TEMPLE AND EFFIGY
The effigy is usually a large art piece that is burned on Saturday night and is the defining moment of a Regional Burn, It’s what brings all the participants together in one ineffable moment of shared celebration, catharsis, and ritual. The Effigy can depict a classical human form, or an alternative sculpture, or any other structure you imagine. Non-burning submissions are accepted, as are submissions intended to optionally burn on another night.
The temple provides a space for reflection, meditation, memorializing and release. The Temple Burn is the closing event of Otherworld on Sunday Night and provides a final release of the memories, thoughts, wishes, and burdens that we have left there, whatever it was we needed to let go of or move past. The temple is a neutral, non-denominational space, and adheres to the traditions of the Black Rock City Temple. Non-burning submissions are accepted, as are submissions intended to optionally burn on another night.
TRADITIONS
The official Burn Night Activity at the Effigy are held in the tradition of Black Rock City, which means during Burn Night Shows (typically, Saturday and Sunday):
- all announcements to be issued are safety announcements only
- music from adjacent stages, other than one providing sound support at the direction of the Effigy or Temple show team, shall be turned off
- if a Fire Show is scheduled for the Burn Night Activity, please coordinate your effects with them and our fire safety team
- we do not place or schedule performances, events, group exercise, curated entertainment, functions, bands or DJs inside or on the Temple or Effigy
- The Effigy can be interactive and should permit celebration
- The Temple can be interactive and should permit grief
- The Temple or Effigy should not be a symbol of a particular faith, group, or religion
- The Temple or Effigy should not depict a recognizable individual, fictional or otherwise
- The Temple or Effigy should not be an extension of a personal camp but a reflection of the aspects that unify a diverse community
- Contact us if you need clarity on this requirement at info@kindlarts.ca
GRATITUDE FOR THE CONTRIBUTORS
Constructing and building a Temple or Effigy is a significant amount of work and personal investment of time and energy. These builders (and prospective builders) are working to create something with greater limitations and obligation than a personal art project.
It is also often a project with an emotional impact on the creators.
Please be kind, considerate, and respectful of the gift of their time and energy. The contribution may represent multiple weeks of unpaid labor and are guaranteed not to unfurl exactly as the creator intended. Out of respect for the creators, gratitude, physical help, and supportive comments are all appropriate responses to such an enormous gift.
CONTEXTUALIZATION (for folks not submitting a proposal)
In the past, we have not always offered remarks at this level of detail, but as time has gone on, it seems prudent to contextualize for members of the community the nature of the gift that small teams of incredible people bestow upon us every year.
The principle of the do-archy is that we do not criticize the giver of gifts unless we are willing to take on the full scope of their burden, and the corollary to that is that we learn the scope of the burden when we are given the opportunity so that we can appreciate what we have been given.
Those who do not donate multiple work weeks to production projects may lack a crucial understanding of the nature of what it is to propose and work on production projects.
Even those with time intensive projects but who have the ability to stop work at any time may not fully understand the mental burden that is carried, when an individual is compelled by law or sense of duty to carry through their proposal to the end.
Thought Exercise – a reflection on nature of the deep gifts
We offer the thought to individuals without this experience: close your eyes, and imagine donating 6 to 8 weeks of paycheques and all of your paid time off in a year to a community, with an almost certain notion that much or all of attending the event itself will be erased by obligations to work it.
Sit in that moment for five minutes. Then imagine it is a dear friend of yours who is making such a contribution.
Either for you or your friend, would you like to receive comments and derision claiming you did not do enough from anyone, let alone those who had not made the same contribution? Would you like someone to do something like that to one of your close friends?
As all participants at the event are also stewards of the community, understand that the number of humans with time, skill, and capacity to make projects of this scale happen are limited. We have no shortage of bright-eyed promises that envision grand ideas whose principle workload is fundamentally borne by other nameless people, with limited understanding of the burden.
It is very easy to travel from having a handful of projects proposed to having no projects, which would result in a cancellation of the process.
It is overwhelmingly in the interest of the community to prevent such a scenario.
In this context, we can more fully understand the selection and construction of these projects are not a popularity contest, a sports match or a critic’s gallery.