The Burning Man festival, which every summer brings together more than 70,000 people in the Nevada desert (USA), will have Valencian participation in its 2025 edition. Miguel Arraiz (Valencia, 1975) has been selected to design the central temple of the event, the first Hispanic architect to take on this creative challenge.
His proposal, entitled Temple of the Deep, is inspired by the Japanese art of kintsugi – the technique of repairing broken pottery with gold – and symbolizes emotional healing after the catastrophe.
The structure will evoke a fragmented rock with golden veins, a visual metaphor for grief and reconstruction.
This project takes on a particularly significant symbolic charge for the Valencia region. The design was conceived just as last October’s dana devastated the south of the province, with 228 deaths.
Later, the selection of the proposal coincided with the fires in Los Angeles, underlining the link between natural catastrophes and emotional memory that structures the concept of the temple.
You can send your photos to Burning Man to decorate the temple.
For the first time, a collaboration between Burning Man and a university project will allow direct participation from Spain. The Universitat de València, through the Salvem les Fotos initiative, will collect until July 20 letters, memories and messages that will be taken to the temple.
These offerings can be delivered in several spaces of the university network, such as the Castell d’Alaquàs, the Museu Comarcal de Torrent, the Centre ESART d’Algemesí, the Casa Alamanzón d’Utiel and the Museu d’Història Natural de Burjassot.
On July 21, the Valencian team of the project will collect all the letters and will travel with them to the United States, taking with them a piece of the Valencian collective memory to the heart of one of the most relevant cultural events in the world.
The temple will finally be burned in absolute silence on August 31st, as the final ceremony of the festival.