Photo Gallery: Burning Man 2010

By Flavorwire Staff

Sep. 13, 2010

Burning Man is well known for its lawless nature, psychedelic atmosphere, and avant-garde spirit, with a reputation for everything experimental and no patience for spectators. For many it’s a spiritual quest. For others, a break from reality. It’s also arguably the largest organized coalescence of artists, engineers, architects, fire spinners, college professors, DJs, bankers, designers, doctors, shamans, students, and CEOs on the planet, where everyone is intimately connected to each other by the city that they build together — a city that temporarily provides a new kind of structure free from externally and self-imposed limits, through which citizens choose to live as they want.

What happens when people become the unabashed architects of their own experience? People start making things just because they feel like it. Strangers become unmet friends instead of potential obstacles. The joy of childhood comes back. Then it combines with adult capabilities and the cutting-edge of DJ culture, sound technology, visual installation, performance art, and just about every other creative impulse you could imagine. The result? A giant playground of potential in an otherwise dry and dead lake bed.

It’s difficult to describe Burning Man because it has no limits. It is a catalyst, and it is entirely up to you what to do there, with the reminder that you can actually do anything. We recommend experiencing it firsthand, but in the mean time, check out a gallery of images from our favorite photographers, including several from the massive yoga with Elena Brower and 5rhythms ecstatic dance with Jonathan Horan we put on with the Robot Heart Sound System, Disorient, and Rhythmwave Friday at the Temple of Flux.