Meow Wolf Matches Art Grant Funds for Sunburn

Santa Fe art collective Meow Wolf has announced that they will match art grant funds donated to Sunburn 2017— a regional Burning Man event held in Jemez, New Mexico this year from June 29 to July 2.

Sunburn will extend their art grant deadline by two weeks in order to get additional funds into the community. They have invited Meow Wolf and local artists to apply for grants to bring their art to the regional Burn. Everyone knows about the national Burning Man event, the chaotic yet wildly influential Black Rock City in Nevada, but many people don't know about regionals. Regional burns are smaller-scale events that take place across the country. These events are opportunities for local burners to form connections with one another and find a venue for their work.

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These regionals are organized by local crews. In the case of Sunburn, about one dozen burners organized the event under an LLC named NMSPF90 ("just like a good sunscreen!" quips regional president Christopher Blaz).

"Burning Man culture is spreading far and wide through the Regional Burn Network,” said Blaz. “With art giant Meow Wolf's matched grant funds, we’re able to scale up our support of local artists to push the boundaries of creativity further at Sunburn. Meow Wolf and the Burning Man Project share many principles including big art, communal effort, radical self expression and participation-focused interactive art. Together, we cultivate a fantastic world.”

Sunburn has money to give away to artists and makers of all stripes in exchange for illuminating the event with their talents. Grants are typically $100 to $500 and are meant to match artists’ own contributions toward the project. Deadline for applications is June 18th but Sunburn won’t necessarily wait to start dispersing funds.

Artists may apply for grants online here. “After meeting with the Sunburn team, this was an easy decision for us,” said Meow Wolf CEO Vince Kadlubek. “The time is now for New Mexico to take everything to a higher level and we know that community art and artists as exemplified by Sunburn will lead the way.”

Burns are difficult things to organize and participate in, but that's part of what makes them rewarding. They're ephemeral moments of creativity that exist more in time than in space, bubbles of art that float for a short time and disappear without a trace. Because of that many burners see burns as parallels for their internal creative lives.

"The Burning Man Project has brought me some much-needed direct engagement with myself and my human struggles in a way that has made me a stronger being and contributor to the human experience," Blaz said. "For this I am eternally grateful to be part of a community that strives to be better at what they do all the time and being intentional with how we support each other in the process."

People interested in participating this year can go to Sunburn's web site for more information. Burns are often organized around themes. Sunburn's theme for 2017 is HydroRhythm. The theme is explained in a short poem on the burn's page. The interpretation is left to you:

Water is life.

Life is Rhythm.

Come play with the fluid pulse

of our community as we

dance for a high desert monsoon rain.

Good luck to Sunburn as they embark on their 2017 event!