Project Radical Inclusion

Laura Diamond, a senior at UCLA in their World Arts and Cultures program, has a project called Project Radical Inclusion that revolves around Burning Man. She's pushing for greater inclusion for underrepresented artists at BM, those living in poverty, with an emphasis on artists of color.

She's part of Camp Que Viva, a camp that grew out of a camp I was with in 2011 and 2012, founded by Brooke Oliver (BM's nonprofit counsel) and her wife Elba Rivera. We had a pretty diverse camp those years and I know Brooke and Elba have more-than-continued with that path. 

One of Que Viva's goals is gifting low/no-income artists with tickets that others donate to the cause, in order to help do their part in enabling a wider range of people to participate. Burning Man is hardly cheap, after all (though I've got some tips for doing it on the cheap here), and you need disposable income or generous friends to attend.

Beyond the  gifting of tickets to artists who otherwise couldn't afford to come, they run Migration is Beautiful workshops on the playa where they make butterfly wings, representing the journey migrants around the world make.  (And some of them are really quite pretty.)

These folks are Doing It Right.

They're also looking for donations. If you're in a Burner community, you're aware that there'll be a lot of opportunities to fund art and mutant vehicles and sound camps and so on, and of course those are all excellent (though some are more excellent than others).

What Que Viva is asking you for help doing is funding artists themselves, particularly underrepresented ones. It's way too easy to spend all your attention on the 'big' art at Burning Man, and miss great projects like this one that, to my mind embody the spirit of Burning Man.

I think it's pretty cool, and I'm donating. I hope you'll consider it too. 

Details:
This page explains what the funding is for. Mainly for tickets and tents for the low/no-income artists, and art supplies. Donation link is towards the bottom of the page.

Que Viva, 2014 ohtony.com