interactive architectural space, Nowhere 2014

wood, plywood, burlap, cardboard, bamboo, wind chimes, sand

lead artist, design and construction

The Temple of Ascension was a sacred space, that facilitated and celebrated an experience of spirituality and mourning or letting go, but also wonderment and playfulness for the participants of Nowhere, Europe’s regional Burn event.

It was a Burning Man-style temple, with the unique vibe and limitations of Nowhere taken into account. Influenced and built with wind/air and earth as its core elements. A decentred experience that celebrated Nowhere’s decentred community.

The Temple of Ascension was a visual, a sensory, a tactile and a participatory experience. The structure itself provided a secluded oasis, or experience in itself, on the Nowhere festival grounds. The structure was built with cardboard panels clad in burlap and then drenched in sand, creating a very earthly and sandy experience. Differently pitched wind chimes created a unique atmosphere in the structure. The interior of the structure was a place of relaxation, with possibility of encounters, and integral ritual parts of the temple.

Nowhere is a “non-Burn” Burn event. That means that traditional Burn-temple practice – in which participants leave pictures, messages, drawings and other things in the temple to be burned and thereby “letting go” of these things – doesn’t work. We devised a practice in which participants could write their messages or drawings in sand, on big books in the center ‘altar’. Whenever the participant was ready, he/she could turn the page, literally and figuratively, and whatever he/she had entrusted to the book, was gone and let go of.

Also see: Temple of Ascension on Facebook.