You by no means know what a easy “yes” can remodel into. Because the mud clouded across the soles of my Timberland boots for the primary time in 2017, I had no clue that my life — and my influence on the world — was about to fully change.
I entered the gates of Burning Man, the annual week-long neighborhood and artwork pageant of round 75,000 folks held in Black Rock Metropolis, a brief metropolis in the midst of the desert of northwestern Nevada, as an insecure younger lady who didn’t fairly know the place she match. Images was my present, self-taught however God-given, and all I wished was to journey, to inform tales, and to encourage folks via my work. When a pal gifted me a ticket that yr, I actually wished to say no. I used to be terrified and positively didn’t assume it was an area for me, given its historic popularity as overwhelmingly White, wild, and male. I’m glad I did, scared and all. It set off a ripple impact that continues to form not simply my life, however the neighborhood round me.
Erin Douglas, picture from the Black Burner Venture (2022)
That first yr was every little thing folks say about Burning Man and extra — magical and laborious, overwhelming and delightful, reflective and transformative. And whereas I got here again uncertain if I’d ever return, I carried with me a brand new understanding: that there’s magnificence and progress within the unknown, that illustration issues, and genuine tales matter much more.
In 2018, I returned with a mission: to {photograph} and share the tales of Black and Brown Burners. Out of that got here the Black Burner Venture, a storytelling initiative devoted to documenting and celebrating our presence, shifting narratives, and proving that we, too, belonged on this radical house of creativity, freedom, and self-expression. My hope was to encourage others who seemed like me to take up house, to create, to dream large, and to grasp that they have been worthy of belonging in areas of therapeutic and pleasure. And nearly instantly, that hope took type in what grew to become my first actual artwork piece.
Erin Douglas, Black Burner Venture group picture (2018)
The very first Black Burner Venture group picture was greater than a picture — it was a imaginative and prescient, an expressive gathering; reside paintings. A second of emotion, magnificence, and connection. I knew that even earlier than I clicked the shutter. It was an expertise. Presence itself grew to become the medium. When a bystander stated that witnessing the gathering was probably the most highly effective and delightful artwork piece she’d seen on the playa — what we name the dry lakebed on which the pageant takes place — I held these phrases near my coronary heart. That picture foreshadowed every little thing that got here after. It was proof that gathering, documenting, and honoring our neighborhood may very well be as transformative as any sculpture within the mud.
That very first expertise finally carried me someplace I by no means imagined: into the world of large-scale artwork. I didn’t consider myself as an artist. However after I created “Black! Asé” in 2022 — the primary large-scale images set up that includes portraits of Black Burners on playa — I understood what artwork may do. I acknowledged my present and stepped into my new position, gathering, activating, and creating areas that may be felt, not simply witnessed. With huge portraits of Black people standing tall within the desert, folks had no selection however to see us, to honor our magnificence, to ask questions, to sit down with their discomfort. That’s what artwork does: It shifts notion. And if I may do it with out prior expertise, others may too.
Erin Douglas, Black Burner Venture group picture (2019)
Quick ahead to this yr, seven years in, and I discover myself in a special position. I made a decision to attend this yr’s pageant on the final minute, and, for the primary time, I went primarily for myself. To not lead a construct, to not run an activation, to not {photograph}, however merely to witness — to face again and have a look at the motion I had helped spark. And, after all, above all, to play. To search out new components of myself; to find my very own story after years of dedication and fervour in the direction of this work.
What I noticed humbled me.
Erin Douglas, “Jen Reed’s Compost Playground – The Apple Core” (2025)
Kate Moss, artist/fabricator Jen Reed (picture courtesy the artist)
All throughout the playa, I stumbled upon items of artwork created and birthed by Burners of Colour. I didn’t search them out — they discovered me. As I biked towards playa Alchemist — the 71-foot silver pyramid sitting within the distance, the exact opposite course from my camp — the unmistakable curves of Jen Reed’s “Apple Core,” the stays of a bit of fruit eaten right down to its core, sculpted from metal and twine, rose from the mud like a residing organism, inviting pleasure and reflection at monumental scale.
On the base of the Man, Zulu Heru’s highly effective and masterful “Whispers of Waste” masks towered above me, a reminder of ancestral presence. Its weathered floor and framing horns evoked an artifact unearthed by archaeologists, a relic from the Motherland carrying echoes of centuries previous.
“I’m working to break the stereotype that African masks are ‘primitive,’” Zulu instructed me. “They should be seen as fine art, as high art, and Burning Man is a stage to show that.”
Erin Douglas, “Hey Queen” by artists Chelsey Hathman & Sterling Benefield
Erin Douglas, Chelsey (Chels) Hathman
Driving across the mud mounds in one other course on the compacted, dusty floor, I stumbled on “Hey Queen” by lead fabricator Chelsey Hathman and artist Sterling Benefield, a regal, unapologetic depiction of a brown queen topped in glory. She was Stunning.
Hathman instructed me: “It feels like a full-circle moment. My first burn was in 2022. I was definitely on the lookout for more Black folx, especially Black queer women like myself. I found them in glimpses. One night, I stumbled upon an art piece of a large figure, a Black man with a red bandana on his face, neon circular glasses, and a tough hat. I was mesmerized. You could see the dust on his arm hair! I felt drawn to him, to the playa. The grind that it requires to bring art there. I felt seen, and I wanted to bring that feeling to other Black and Brown folx.”
Arin Fishkin, “Dispensing Influence” (2025) by Gerry Laureus, Atwane Calderon, and Daquan Carathers (picture courtesy Daquan Carathers, Gerry Laureus, and Antwan Calderon)
As I headed to a different camp throughout the playa, there stood “Dispensing Influence” by first-time artist lead Gerry Laureus, a larger-than-life gumball machine. Turning its knob felt like being a baby once more — anticipating what shock would possibly roll out — however as a substitute of sweet, it launched radiant, round Yoruba orishas: divine spirits embodying nature, emotion, and the cosmic.
Yomi Ayeni, “Dispensing Influence” (2025) leads Daquan Carathers, Gerry Laureus, Antwan Calderon (picture courtesy the artist)
After which, as I made my means in the direction of the Temple, the religious coronary heart of each Burning Man, the place we replicate, launch, and maintain house for these we’ve misplaced — there, I used to be met by “The Pillar of Po Tolo,” the most recent Afrofuturist column from artist and architect Antwane Lee. His first set up, the pillar work “The Solar Shrine” (2022), created a holistic house of therapeutic and shared visions of the long run — witnessing his second set up right here crammed me with satisfaction and pleasure.
Every discovery stopped me in my tracks. Each crammed me with awe, satisfaction, and a deep sense of completion. To see folks I’ve identified for years — mates, collaborators, neighborhood members — step into their very own greatness of creation, fabrication, and gifting was nothing in need of electrical.
Erin Douglas, Antwane Lee’s “The Pillar of Po Tolo” (2025)
Erin Douglas, artist/architect Antwane Lee (2025)
At the moment, the presence of Black-led artwork at Burning Man is plain, and it’s rising. To bump into 5 items in a single trip out on playa alone is a victory, a testomony to what’s doable when illustration takes root and grows.
It wasn’t like this in 2017. By then, the one Black artists I’d ever heard of have been Hank Willis Thomas and Martha Reid, whose monumental Afro choose sculpture drew me to the playa early so I wouldn’t miss its unveiling. I didn’t know of every other Black-led initiatives at Burning Man. If there have been, they went largely unrecognized, dwarfed by the lots of of different installations.
“I wanted to create a beacon that would call more people from all backgrounds into play, and I felt ‘All Power to All People’ could live up to that,” Willis Thomas instructed me. “I’m most excited about what you and others have done, and I hope the afro pick helped others to feel they could be ambitious.”
Marsha Reid, “All Power to all People” (2018) (picture courtesy the artist)
Erin Douglas, picture of “All Power to All People” (2018) by Hank Willis Thomas, Marsha Reid, and workforce
I met Zulu in 2018 on playa — his first Burn, my second. As I wandered, nonetheless determining the right way to strategy this images venture thought, I stumbled into his camp simply up the highway from mine. He was an apparent inventive, somebody I felt compelled to keep up a correspondence with. I had no thought I’d later name him again to playa as one in all my construct leads for my first-ever set up in 2022. By 2023, he was main his personal honoraria venture — the extremely aggressive Burning Man Arts grants awarded annually to a choose variety of large-scale installations on playa.
Jen Reed joined my workforce in 2022 after a 10-year break from the Burn. We met for the primary time on the playa as we ready to construct. She then stepped up as my construct lead and fabricator for my second large-scale set up, “Barbershop” (2024), impressed by the cultural significance of barbershops in Black communities and my circle of relatives’s journey with psychological well being. Designed as a sanctuary, it grew to become a website for reflection, therapeutic, and dialogue — honoring Black males’s psychological well being, creativity, and connection whereas sparking broader conversations about identification, belonging, and resilience. This yr, Jen introduced her personal imaginative and prescient and set up to life for the primary time at Burning Man, one she had been ideating and patiently ready to present to the playa and past for years.
Martin Rodriguez, artist Zulu Heru (picture courtesy the artist)
The folks I’ve met via likelihood encounters have change into a part of my story, and in flip, they’ve launched new and expansive inventive journeys of their very own.
This yr, I spotted one thing: My mission could also be full, however the work is much from over. The Black Burner Venture was by no means about me; it was about us. About planting seeds, constructing bridges, and opening doorways in order that others may stroll via and create their very own magic. Be their very own magic. And now, standing within the mud and witnessing this flourishing of Black artwork and presence, I see that we’re in a brand new section.
The following chapter isn’t nearly illustration — it’s about enlargement. It’s about guaranteeing that artists of shade proceed to be supported, inspired, and championed not solely at Burning Man however far past it.
As a result of what began as a terrified “yes” in 2017 has grown right into a motion. And actions, as soon as born, don’t cease; they multiply. As artist Reed put it: “I hope my project inspires artists to dream something that makes no sense at all. You don’t have to be practical or follow many rules. You just have to believe that whatever you really want to create is worth creating simply because you thought of it.”
Erin Douglas, Burning Man attendees (undated)
Erin Douglas, the playa at Burning Man
