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I have often wondered why there are so many mannequins at Burning Man. Doesn't
it seem repetitive, copycat, been-there-done-that? Ho hum, another weirdly painted
or decorated or mutilated mannequin.
But something finally dawned on me this year, and it's been right there under
my nose the whole time. Burning Man. Burning Man has never been about
a flaming wooden stick figure. It's about manmankindat our
best, worst, most creative, most exaggerated, most weak, most strong, most human.
It's no coincidence that the Man is a man, and not, say, a golden calf.
He's the iconic symbol of a festival that celebrates humanity.
The mannequins, too, are human figuresbut unlike the towering, universal
Man, each reflects the specific vision of a single creator, decorator, or amputator.
Some of these individuals I would hate to meet in a dark alley (see above).
But even the sinister creations should not necessarily be taken at face value.
Because how many of them are intended to stand in contrast to humanity?
A dead symbol of what we living beings are not? A monstrous, crippled object
that, by its very presence, highlights the beauty and vitality of the real human
figures passing it by?
And then, of course, there are those visionaries who discover a stylized beauty
in these plastic mandroids, inviting us to contemplate a future, or a parallel
universe, where humankind has spun off in strange yet enchanting aesthetic directions.
Suddenly the mannequins all make sense to me. They are individual splinters
of the big wooden Man who invites us to explore and celebrate what it means
to be human.