Cover image by Scarlett Hayes, shayestudios, Mosaic 2015
Feeling overwhelmed by all the Mosaic info flooding your interwebs? Our Survival Guide was just updated to reflect our 2021 burn and stands ready to help you know all that you need to know, especially if you are new to Mosaic Experiment or just want a refresher regarding how we burn.
Find it by visiting mosaicexperiment.com/survival-guide and get yourself in the know before you go!
Our burn can only happen because you make it happen. Every single one of you (yes, we are looking at YOU specifically) is needed to contribute to help create the wonder and magic we build together.
Yesterday the architecture went live within our site. Today we’re pleased to roll out our volunteer initiative for 2021 as we race toward gathering on a shortened timeline this year. As such, we’re continuing our #OneBurnerOneShift initiative we’ve championed in years past and ask everyone attending to claim a shift (or more) to help. Our burn will be better for it!
Please visit mosaicexperiment.com/volunteersignup and sign up now. Also, please note that if you previously filled out the registration form, we won’t be contacting you individually. Simply sign up for the shifts you want instead.
Let’s do this! Become the burn magic we want to experience!
It is time to purchase your tickets for Mosaic Experiment 2021: Off And On Again!
Can you fathom where we are at this moment? How far we’ve come to get here? Well, please fathom it quickly as there is a ticket cap of 450, they are selling well already and when they are gone they are gone.
It’s like you want to get back to a burn or something? It's time to come home so please be sure to get all the important details by visiting mosaicexperiment.com/tickets plus the purchase link is at the bottom of the page.
Do you know how much we appreciate artists in our burn community? You should because each and every one of you are or can be an artist at Mosaic Experiment! Want to build something insanely outrageous? Beautiful? Interactive? Weird, odd, and charming? We want to hear your concepts for our 2021 Effigy and Temple!
This year we have allotted $1000 each, 1k for effigy and 1k for temple, to support your projects. What is the most important thing to know? We are on a TIGHT TIMELINE so we are opening the gates for proposals today and closing them on July 23rd anticipating announcing our selections by July 28th. Due to the shortened timeline, we will not be reaching out to artists to ask clarifying questions about their art. We will gladly answer any questions you have BEFORE the deadline, but please ensure your plans are complete upon submission. Incomplete submissions will be grounds for disqualification.
Before you start your preparations, visit mosaicexperiment.com/artgrants paying particular attention to the resources on that page (especially the prohibited burn materials). We invite you to dig deep, find that idea you know is there and bring it to life!
It all starts by filling out your application here.
We are thrilled to share the dates for our 2021 Mosaic Experiment. Mark your calendar now for September 16-19th, 2021.
We have not yet made the call regarding in person versus virtual so stay tuned for many, many more updates as the days count down to our burn!
Thank you to everyone who joined us for our past two "Meet The MORG" gatherings over the last few weeks!
We had planned a third session for tomorrow (Sunday, April 11th), but decided to postpone it as we retool and expand a few things. Enjoy your weekend and we'll be back with more Mosaic goodness soon.
If everyone would please get out their schedules, we need to make a change! Don't worry, we brought enough whiteout for everyone.
A few weeks back we were excited to share the 2021 dates for Mosaic Experiment. Whether we gather in person or virtually, we wanted you to have those dates. Sadly, due to an unforeseen conflict which arouse, our dates are going to change. We will return to announce those new dates by the end of this month (or sooner if Burning Man makes a final decision regarding this year).
Please know we appreciate your understanding. The world remains in flux but we will keeping you informed with each step forward we take.
Our second Meet The MORG (aka Mosaic organizers) series of Zoom meetings is set kickoff tonight answering your questions and exchanging ideas on How Does A Burn Come Together, aka How This Shit Happens.
Join Zoom Meeting at 8:00PM here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87285666340
Join your community organizers for a thrill-packed hour (or so) of discussion on how your Mosaic Experiment is brought to life, how we ethically sacrifice inanimate objects to appease the mud gods, how a hippie-trap is like a writing desk, and more!
Interested in joining our ragtag team of volunteers in helping us create the best burn yet (that is totally better than next year)? We're here to answer your questions and provide you with the info on how to make that dream a reality.
Can't wait til 8:00 and want to join in on the fun now? Join our Discord and you can escape Defaultia whenever you want: https://discord.gg/ZfuEGHQ
Given the recent attempted insurrection at the Capitol, we, the organizers of Mosaic Experiment, feel it is part of our Civic Responsibility to take a stance and speak out against the actions of those involved.
This was an attack not only upon the elected officials, staffers, interns, and government employees but also an attack upon the democratic process that forms the foundation of our society. This violence was both abhorrent and inexcusable.
It has come to our attention that an individual, photographed wearing a symbol from another Burning Man Regional Network event, was arrested on multiple weapons charges in Washington D.C. the day before the attack occurred. Whether they intended to use these weapons the following day is irrelevant. What is relevant is that this reflects poorly upon the burn community as a whole and undermines our principles at their very core.
Given these events, we reaffirm our stance on the very first principle, Radical Inclusion, which states: Anyone may be a part of Mosaic Experiment. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community.
Being a part of this community means that all of us welcome and respect one another. While no prerequisites exist for your participation, once you come Home it’s expected that you genuinely embrace the respect for others as it has been extended to you. When you pack out, we hope that your experience has impacted you in a way that allows you to carry this respect into your default world.
“We need to give each other the space to grow, to be ourselves, to exercise our diversity. We need to give each other space so that we may both give and receive such beautiful things as ideas, openness, dignity, joy, healing, and inclusion”
Radical Inclusion does not mean we will accept actions, words, or beliefs that are rooted in violence, hatred, or discrimination of any kind.
If you will not welcome, respect and celebrate the diversity that brings us together as a community, then you are not embracing the principle of Radical Inclusion. If you are advocating for discrimination and violence, beliefs of superiority, or casting wanton judgement and exclusion against others, then you are not cultivating the environment that we are striving to provide for everyone. We as a community, as part of our Civic Responsibility, do not tolerate and will not welcome that.
In these times of social upheaval, we are given the opportunity to step outside our boxes. This allows us to examine who we are as human beings and who we strive to be. We have the choice to allow our fears to control us or to embrace compassion and grow as a society. We have seen the damage that fear and intolerance can do, and we choose not to let this define us.
Mosaic Experiment looks forward to welcoming anyone with the courage to practice this Radical Inclusion to burn with us.
We, the leaders of Mosaic Experiment (the MOrg), made a mistake weeks ago: we did not immediately express our strong stance as an anti-racist community. We recognize that no single statement could address every aspect of how systemic racism intersects our community. We understand that poor leadership regarding race can lead to real and lasting harm. That said, our community must unlearn racism - together.
We categorically refuse to tolerate any presence of racism in any of our communities. Racism directly harms the ability of Black burners to engage in radical self-expression, participation, communal effort and immediacy. By improving the experience that Black and other burners of color have at our events, we improve the experience for all of us. Freedom to participate with immediacy increases the creative, chaotic joy of burn magic.
In order to improve things, we start with establishing the present condition. Racism exists. Historically weaponized by white people to justify owning slaves and colonizing the globe, it is still leveraged today in order to preserve power. The toxicity of racism seeps into the inner workings of all our minds, hearts and bodies. Our position and lived experience impacts how this toxicity shows in our everyday lives. If we are white, we benefit from this legacy. If we are Black, we carry the scars of lynching, segregation, discrimination, and trauma in our souls. The wounding continues to this day.
We must acknowledge that a community without racism is an alien phenomenon to those of us alive today. Currently, the members of the Mosaic community appear to be overwhelmingly white. As an all-volunteer organization, our leadership emerges from and reflects the wider community.
We also want to emphasize the impact our mostly white community can create in prioritizing growth, learning, and dialogue around racism. Since white people created and sustained this oppressive system, we must take full responsibility for dismantling it, too. This responsibility means seeking to educate ourselves, humbly acknowledging when we make mistakes, and welcoming accountability from Black burners.
Two years ago, our community declared the importance of safety at our event, and recognized the problem of sexual assault and harassment within our community. We responded by creating the Consent Team. Now, as we acknowledge the presence of racism, we must educate ourselves and hold each other accountable, just like we are doing with consent. We recognize that this will always be a work in progress, meaning continual growth and improvement over time.
We welcome increased diversity in the voices of the leadership team. However, we know the path to get there is not by singling out individual burners of color and expecting additional labor from them. There are always leadership positions available to members of our community, and we welcome any burner who desires to contribute to join us. We acknowledge that there are barriers to taking on leadership roles, and we are working to better understand and address them.
As a first step, the MOrg will update the Code of Conduct to explicitly define microaggressions as harassment. As we review our existing practices and policies, we will examine our recruitment process for the MOrg. We will look for opportunities to elevate Black burners, such as reserving a portion of art grants specifically for BIPOC artists. We commit to continually educating ourselves on racism, and will provide educational opportunities for our community through the Consent Team, both at the burn and through engagement on social media. Additionally, various members of the MOrg are involved with initiatives to address diversity within the burner community. We will continue to improve Mosaic’s operations as we uncover ways to do so.
We enthusiastically ask for your participation in this process. Please bring forward ideas, concerns, problems and solutions, either in the comments below or anonymously on the contact page. It’s your burn - how would you like it to be? How will you welcome the Black community into Mosaic Experiment?
