Space-themed AfrikaBurn returns to full capacity in 2023

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Annual participant-driven arts and music festival AfrikaBurn recently revealed its theme of “space” as it returns to full capacity in April 2023. This is after ending a two-year hiatus with a smaller festival held earlier this year under the cloud of lockdown restrictions. 

For a week, festival goers will once again experience what amounts to Africa’s largest outdoor art gallery as they gather in the remote desert of the Tankwa Karoo. Organisers say they look forward to returning to 100% capacity at AfrikaBurn 2023.

AfrikaBurn is a regional event inspired by Burning Man, which took place in August this year at Black Rock Desert in Nevada. Both events focus on community, art, self-expression and self-reliance. 

The concept of Burning Man was inspired by two friends, Larry Harvey and Jerry James, who in 1986 made a wooden figure and took it to Baker Beach in San Francisco and burnt it as a crowd gathered around to watch. Since then the US event has gone on to attract tens of thousands of people who get together once a year to camp, build and enjoy art installations and dance among other things. 

What makes these events distinctive is that they are decommodified and there is no money. Instead, the festival relies on its participants to make the event and everything works on a gifting system. Attendees bring gifts, which can range from large art installations and music stages through to smaller things like food, drinks or experiences. 

(Aidan Cramer)

As with Burning Man, AfrikaBurn is guided by a set of principles that include radical self expression, gifting, participation, radical self reliance and leaving no trace after the event is over. AfrikaBurn provides a space for participants to “invent the world anew”, with people expressing themselves through costume, performance and the creation of large-scale art pieces. 

Much of the art is built in the leadup to the event and some of the large artworks are burnt over the course of the event. The burning of the iconic San Clan artwork – the equivalent of the ‘Man’ at Burning Man – usually marks the climax of the event. Many pieces that are not burnt have gone on to be re-used as public art in Cape Town and its surrounds or remained at the venue to form part of the landscape for future years. 

Since it launched in 2007, AfrikaBurn has grown from a small event of about 1 000 people in that year, to peak at about 13 000 people at the 2017 event. 

Tickets went on sale at the start of September and theme camp registrations have also been opened up. AfrikaBurn’s Brian Palmer said they looked forward to participants bringing the magic to the lunar landscape of the Tankwa Karoo desert. 

“We look forward to all the artists returning to AfrikaBurn and what it is they have to bring. We provide the blank canvas and can only hope they bring the magic,” Palmer said.

AfrikaBurn takes place at the Tankwa Karoo desert from 24th to the 30th of April 2023. Visit afrikaburn.com for ticket purchases.