burn zine

Naked Intention

BURN INTENTIONS

To cultivate a safe and inclusive community

To raise funds for undeserved communities

To build bridges; bringing unlikely people together

To reconstruct oppressive narratives and render new ideas

To create a dance floor at the beach

Grounded in a love for the healing powers of rumination, discomfort and empathy.

The Burn, a charity event/installation exhibition performance piece/rave/another-drunk-night/feral celebration, is above all labels a piece of art. We believe good art exists to be critiqued, to invoke conversation, rumination, and controversy. We would like to recognize the critiques we received with the intention of evolving.

In the initial stages of organization, there was not enough authentic collaboration with communities of color. As such, despite our truest goal, The Burn was not a safe space for everyone. The Burn took place on stolen Native Chumash land without collaboration with Chumash members. Our name, “Burning Womxn,” draws from the controversial and often appropriative event Burning Man. Its existence on stolen land and connection to Burning Man did not extend a welcoming invitation to all. As one of our primary goals was to celebrate a diverse, decolonial, anti-patriarchal, anti-capitalist, artistic community, these critiques nod to our failures.

The marrow of our art piece, and its grandest critique, lies in the multifaceted nature of the event. We chose to combine very real, very traumatic discourse on social injustices with art and a party. Inevitably, the core intention of our event was not grasped by many attendees. This disrespectfully pushed sensitive topics into a passive margin. Despite the respect that was inherently missing from the night, we still believe in the possibility of creatively combining these three juxtaposing realms.

It is in the conjoining of otherwise unacquainted groups where understanding, empathy, and progress are birthed. Birth is uncomfortable. We believe a reason why socially reproduced oppression is upheld is because our spheres of awareness, activism, and education don’t branch beyond our safe spaces. We seek to spread activist wisdom to realms where it does not often flow. We believe in the importance of critique and discomfort as the life force, the blood, behind Revolution. You can’t make people care, but you can make them aware.

We were attempting to meet Isla Vista exactly where it is: the party, while also offering attendees an opportunity to reflect on their privilege and an open door to philanthropic activism. “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.” The collective womb holds space for everyone. The collective womb births Revolution.

Non Profits

There is an ongoing Genocide in Palestine, perpetrated by the Israeli colonial occupation, that has taken over 44,000 Palestinian lives. Manal K is a Palestinian mother, wife and citizen of Gaza. Her family has endured every ounce of the pain inflicted by Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land. We have chosen to support her Go-Fund-Me. Here is her family’s testimony: “On October 13, 2023, we were forcibly displaced and have since moved between a hospital, an UNRWA school, a piece of land in Khan Younis, and now a shelter in Rafah. We are fundraising to evacuate to Cairo, where the money will pay the coordination fee to cross the border, rent a small apartment, and hire a therapist to help us overcome the trauma.” Free Palestine.

The Women’s Foundation California is committed to achieving racial, economic, and gender justice by centering the experiences of communities most impacted by systemic injustice. They focus on policy building, securing grants for community-led organizations, and offering leadership training via the Solís Policy Institute. Since 2003, over 600 fellows have supported more than 50 policy projects being signed into law, including SB 65 (the Momnibus bill) and SB 62 (the Garment Worker Protection Act). We have chosen to support the Women’s Foundation because intersectional advocacy in the legal realm is a very concrete step towards equity.

Su’nan the SPACE recognizes the wealth of cultural, historical, practical, and food knowledge within the Native Chumash community. Their mission is to educate members and the public about local laws, protect their lands, manage resources sustainably, and meet essential needs. They aim for children to grow up on clean lands, fluent in their language and confident in their Chumash heritage. The SPACE also focuses on tribal environmental protection and preserving traditional knowledge for future generations. Active decolonization, landback allyship and recognition of our existence as settlers is necessary are we to right the wrongs of our ancestors. The land we exist on as privileged Isla Vista residents is stolen Chumash land. We support the SPACE as it is a grassroots movement towards a world where Indigenous peoples can heal the trauma of colonialism.

“[At The Burn] I learned to respect the land we’re on because it’s sacred. And that women’s bodies are sacred too. A funny moment was the ‘pig blood wrestling.’ Very symbolic.” –Luca Bozzo

Julia’s Game

Who is Julia? → “She is a vision, I am her pawn”

Anjru & Eva

Eva’s Prayer to Kali

Kali, the wild dark goddess

Now I see the violence of birth

That destruction and loss are freedom

That ash brings fertile soil

Delivered with a mountain stream for fresh flowers to bloom

That you throw my doubts into the light

Set them ablaze

Your love is ruthless

Your fire births me

Burns me

Into new existence

What I did not listen to in whispers

You enforce with a reign of love

Love that burns

Hot coals

Ripped me away from that which was spoiled, expired love

Last seasons now-molded harvest I clung to like a child’s blanket

Perhaps it hurts like birthing pains

My body and heart writhing in contractions

As you force out the old paths

Paths that would subdue me, dilute me, and trick me into a muted existence

In turn, I see a new birth

One as wild and wonderful as the earth that made me

Thank you Kali, liberator.

Music as Freedom

“Music is the effort we make to explain to ourselves how our brain works” (Adams. Piano Lessons: Music, Love, & Adventures). Music is used in many countless ways to express oneself. I use music as a way of having fun. To create bouncy melodies, create chords that enable emotions to be brought out, create ambient music that enables reflection, create destructive music to let out anger, or even creating sounds that we may have never heard before. Music involves all that is around us powered by the very hearts each of us contain, literally not metaphorically - Anjru

Liaison

My legs wind around time’s perfect arms Into the outward spiral of A good lesson

As our body becomes Animal

There are no introductions and no divisions

We render the divine dance

Of the clear and the obscure.

Theory melts out of our practiced hands,

And it is a generative practice

We breath in Spring and out seafoam

Rich with our secret and humming

Light and moisture make thinning veils of out failures Of clothes

A familiar song leaves your throat

And makes a habit of me

And my unhiding

“Warm” can be created from anything;

A perfect intimacy is created like this:

The sound of breath entering

The piano player,

Our bodies threaded by earth,

How birds and wind are always on time, harmonious, and never interpret the other

In your portrait you become

An angel gauzy and silked, Loosened from the world, And sleepy

By Claire Kathleen

Why are women the greatest?

Mack Coffey: “Because they always say yes when I ask to be little spoon”.

Who is your favorite feminist?

Ted Brunngraber: “My mom.”

How to end mansplaining once and for all?

Toby Still: “Well you see, it is short for Man Explaining… ;) If we all truly understood that women birthed all of us and have therefore birthed every conscious thought and feeling, then maybe us men wouldn’t assume women know nothing about subjects they actually have a great understanding of.”

What is the Erotic?

Luca Protopapas: “Vaginas.”

Jambibi

“Our initial goal was to explore non-Western blues music, specifically inspired by Ali Faurkatoure, Mdou Moctar and sounds from the Sahara. Now it is a space for Lucian Parisi and I to experiment with our creativity.”

Many people hold the belief that performing other cultures’ music is cultural appropriation. How do you respond to this belief?

“I am still trying to navigate through this myself. It's a question that I think about a lot, because there is a fine, often blurry, line between appreciation and appropriation. I am not of African descent so I do not hold the truest answer, but, I think it is normal to be inspired by music from different parts of the world.

I think it comes down to the way you play the music. If it's out of respect and good intention and you are playing because you are inspired by it, then you should be able to play it. If there is any mockery involved, or you claim it as your own, then I don't think that you should be allowed to play it.

A lot of new art and music comes from being inspired by other people and cultures. The reason any music is made in the first place is because someone else made something that was inspiring. We are inspired by the way African music sounds. I appreciate the music and want to help other people appreciate it as well.” -Luca Protopapas

Observing nature flowing seamlessly through its cycles has always instigated me to question what lies beyond this process. My art features elements of the occult, such as angels and fairies, and how they interact with these natural cycles in the places I paint. I also enjoy incorporating elements from different religions and exploring how their symbolism applies to my work.

Allow

Emilie Risha

Suite for Drowning

Lucian Parisi

Suite for Drowning is a collection of works directly inspired by near death aquatic experiences on the California Coast. This performance by the Drowning Ensemble explores the vastness of the ocean, natural forces, biological fear responses, out of body experience, and after-life. This set of electroacoustic pieces was designed to blend into the natural coastal soundscape of the bluffs, blurring the line between instrumental improvisation, fixed granular audio, and the natural oceanic sounds of the event.

Is your artistic pursuit inspired by anything greater than yourself?

The driving force for much of my art the past few years has been how we interact with the natural ecosystems around us, what we can learn from biological relationships, and how to convey environmental preservation ideals. We often get very lost in the pursuit of more. I hope to make art that helps people appreciate the beauty we are privileged to share with nature, and to be more aware of pressing environmental issues.

How does femininity inspire you?

The feminine figures in my life push me to deepen my compassion for others and reevaluate the societal systems that I take part in. They serve as an inspiring source of strength, clarity, and communication that is vital to my being a better artist and a better person.

Surrender

a wide open mouth contorted muscles stretched jaw gears behind molars which crank open surrendering to the desire of sound to be voice wind to slip through the door hissing air and commanding the unseen to be heard and felt in the small twitching of ears there is a moment before sound becomes voice when it is only the tender grunts and quiet moans which escape the wound of our face our primal scar

By Colette Harmon

Magnetize is our passion project which we intend to grow into throughout our lives. Our mission is to create original music that feels authentic to us as we evolve as artists! As a duo and girl band our aim is to take up space in a male dominated world and inspire others to do the same. Magnetize is named to inspire listeners to manifest their desires as we have and do.

Magnetize

Can music intersect with activism?

-There is activism in vulnerability. We believe in an emotionally intelligent future and vulnerable music invites us all to get in touch with our selves and maybe even our shadows. Collective healing is a form of activism!

Do you think your craft intersects with activism?

-Our mission as a band intersects with a larger discussion of feminism but our art is a form of activism in its depth and honesty. We are not necessarily political in our writing but feeling deeply and exploring our emotions is potentially revolutionary.

Magic exists, you’re so cool,

Return to Earth

Carmen El Faye + Olivia O’malley

“I live and die every day. Re-birthed each morning into a body that bleeds life and love. True freedom is what you express, not how it’s received. What you feel in receiving this dance is one of many truths. I love you, mother and teacher, in all forms she comes.”

CAKE

by Leo Safir

“Cake,” a short film, consists of three segments. In each, the male subject represents the patriarchy at a different stage of being dismantled. In the first scene, a woman in a dress is served cake by a team of nude men, with one serving as the table off which she dines. The cake symbolizes decadence, indulgence, and consumption—hallmarks of a power-oriented patriarchal structure. However, in the possession of a woman, the locus of control shifts as she consumes the cake, leaving behind a naked, vulnerable, powerless man.

In the second scene, a man in a suit sits in front of a white sheet while women in their undergarments cover him in compost and liquor. He represents the capitalist businessman and patriarchal control, while the women reclaim their power by covering him in compost, symbolizing patriarchally produced waste. This act represents spiritual release and the potential for new growth from decomposition. In the final scene, the man reflects and cries before wading into the ocean and drowning himself, demonstrating that dismantling the patriarchy requires men to reflect on their complicity and be willing to lose parts of their identity. Revolution means relinquishing control, and men must discard the stability of the present for a more equal world, allowing ideas of male primacy to die.

The movie was aired with a live rendition of the cake-eating scene performed in front of a sheet onto which the film was projected. Critics argued that “Cake” exemplified a pattern in the film industry where a man is applauded for making a feminist film, while female work goes unnoticed. It was criticized for taking the spotlight away from another female-produced film at Burning Woman and for being an ego-driven display of aesthetics that showed little sensitivity to the female experience. The film was seen as a man capitalizing on an opportunity to push his artistic vision rather than intentionally engaging with the intricacies of the female experience.

By Jess Yi

My interest in DJing developed during my study abroad experience in Barcelona. Growing up, I saw my dad DJing in our living room. After my time abroad I expressed interest in mixing,

HE TAUGHT ME

I typically gravitate towards disco and '90s house music when I DJ because those genres are my personal favorites.

“A Record of Human

Experience”

The opportunity to paint something for Burning Woman put me in a thinking space revolving around womanhood, transformation, motherhood, and nature as a whole. Combining the shape of a tree—strong, old, and wise—with the shape of a female body and the presence of a womb brought me to reflect on my own existence and life in the form I have been given. I found myself reflecting on the many experiences I've had so far on this planet and what they mean to the person I've become. We come together for an event like Burning Woman to truly connect with one another, dance, and love each other freely. My painting was placed under a tree, meant to be sat upon, talked about, and loved. This painting could not be completed without the contribution of those who found themselves sitting with it, and for that, I thank everyone who shared, as well as everyone who sat down to breathe and connect with friends. My heart swelled to see different groups of people returning to my work to rest, share, and connect. More dancing! More resting and sharing and connecting and loving! Happy to be alive.

Lauren Varhula

Kole + Danny –

Artist Reflection

by Shawnie Heywood

“There are certain constant entropies and creatings which are part of our inner cycles. It is our task to synchronize with them. Like the chambers of a heart which fill and empty and fill again, we ‘learn to learn’ the rhythm of this Life/ Death/Life cycle instead of becoming martyred by it.” - Clarissa Pinkola Estés, WomenWhoRun withtheWolves

“If my own mother thinks my body is pornographic, then what is still sacred?” The words are splashed like blood across a white canvas, illuminated by the firelight of a massive bonfire where a myriad of humans dance, embrace, feel the warmth of the fire on their skin, and the earth beneath bare feet. Some may not have had the chance to catch the film this question invited them to view, yet all are a part of the collective experience of the artists who came together to burn the borders we have fabricated between us, to embrace the intuitive, and to feed the creative soul that resides within us all.

“I hoped that it would get people thinking about reframing bodies & women from being inherently sexual to being inherently powerful, natural, beautiful. As sexual as they want to be, but not inherently so.”

Ruby’s filmValleyofHerMindwas born from a group of nine impassioned women who sought to answer the question, “What are emotions, sentiments, expressions, or aspects of yourself that you have had to suppress because of the patriarchy?” Inspired by the seminal work of Black queer feminist Audre Lorde, she set out to create a piece of art that redefines and reclaims the meaning of the Erotic, deconstructing the deeply embedded narrative of the female body as an inherently pornographic entity through the vestige of a patriarchal gaze we find in all of ourselves, even the supposed safe haven of the womb we are born from.

This conversation led them to a secluded field on the outskirts of Isla Vista at sunrise, to a place of unadorned exploration, where they individually and collectively unpacked what they had internalized from a false womanhood constructed by the patriarchy. Stripped down to their most vulnerable, naked selves, they reclaimed the beautiful phenomenon it is to be free in their own bodies. Unclothed, unadorned, and unbound, their individual expressions of femininity represent the freedom to be sad, to express anger, to revel in silliness, to abound with joy, to reject the inherently sexual view of their bodies, as well as to embrace being sexual beings if they so choose. The intentionality of each shot, centered on their individual reclamations of their bodies, celebrates “the rainbow of the female experience,” unbounded by the borders or binaries we have been conditioned to accept.

Though she knew that creating a piece of art centered on nudity as the defining motif of empowerment would inevitably engender sexualized interpretations, Ruby feels it is telling of the entire narrative they were attempting to subvert; you cannot control, or even assume, how people will perceive the art you create. She also found beauty in the therapeutic experience of creating the film for all of the women involved because they were able to reframe their deepest insecurities as strengths. The impact of their collective contributions to the art can be noted by “how delighted and empowered they felt afterwards.” Shouting out all of the women who contributed their vulnerability, creativity and beautiful selves to the project, and to her friend Mia Sanguinetti who enabled her cinematic vision to come to life, Ruby sees her film as a testament to the incredible community of artists and creative human beings around her.

“So often the art space feels like there’s a barrier to entry if you haven’t claimed the identity of an ‘artist’ but this experience opened my eyes to the fact that I could take up any medium and make something beautiful.”

This sentiment of empowering the creative soul within evokes the metaphor of the “cookfire” from a story about the retrieval of intuition in Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women WhoRunwiththeWolves . The psychoanalyst, poet, and cantadora describes the initiation of feminine intuition as a rite of passage that begins with a woman accepting herself in her entirety, to steer away from the sanitized version of herself that she entertains when she is “desperately afeared of being disenfranchised or found ‘unnecessary’” (96). She empowers this intuition by feeding the cookfire of her soul that burns with creative desire. When that fire goes out, we know that we have been neglecting some part of what makes up the entirety of the woman, including those “integral aspects the culture finds awful in the psyches of women,” for they are “the very blessed things which women often need most to retrieve and bring to the surface” (97).

Carmen’s celebration of the Erotic embodies the fearless dive into the entirety of the feminine experience, what she describes as an exploration of “the full spectrum of womanhood, from the wild, primal, animal body, to the enlightened goddess, and every emotion in between.” A dance between two naked feminine bodies, bathed in blood and earth, her performance art is an ode to the most wild sensations of womanhood, embrace of the feral, a celebration of the feminine body in all of its capacities, and the primal attraction of divine rage that exists within the intuitive space women hold. An expression of death and birth, sensuality, anger, love, nurturing and motherhood, all of which is united through the rebirthing power of the Earth, she hoped to “change people’s lives” through her performance. Ultimately, however, Carmen found the most empowering experience to be her ability to unleash the full expression of herself and her artistry without needing the understanding of others.

“It was so fucking empowering dude, and I want to be fully expressed in my vision and feralness and eroticness, at all times, even if that feralness and eroticness is low on the scale, I want to be expressed in the lowness, and allow myself to be expressed in whatever I’m feeling and wherever I’m at.”

Within a space she felt to be a celebration of “Woman, whatever that means, and giving space to receive the Woman, however that is expressed by Women,” the empowerment Carmen experienced in the embrace of her feral encapsulates how acceptance of the intuitive is a liberating act of womanhood. In all of its beauty, its ugliness and its naturalness, such empowered reclamation fundamentally subverts what is demanded by the patriarchal polished white box that women are shoved into and sealed silent with a shiny pink bow.

Set against the backdrop of the blood red question on Ruby’s canvas, all of the art showcased embodies the intention of inhabiting the physical space of the Burn. Though some may have perceived Carmen’s performance as “super fucking weird,” or viewed Ruby’s banner as a shocking criticism of our mothers, their presence within the physical space of the collective experience of the Burn pushes the boundary of uncomfortability. It is in this discomfort where growth is to be found, allowing anyone who passes through to open their eyes to the intuitive and share in the artistry that is being Woman. Around the flames of the Burn, these expressions of art and unbounded explorations of the creative soul feed the cookfire that unites us all in the vast experience of being human.

Our Spirt Guides:

All good art, love making, expression of knowledge, etc., is but a transmutation of wisdom borrowed. In other words, all that you are is but a new construction of things that you have learned from someone else. In order to live a life of reciprocity, it is pertinent that in your borrowing of wisdom, you are sure to give constant gratitude and recognition to the spirit guides who inspired your new constructions.

The Burn’s central motif was “The Erotic”. This term and its enlightened understanding was coined by the radical, queer, black feminist Audre Lorde. She is the spirit guide of The Burn. From 1934 to 1992, her life was spent reconstructing the limited, transphobic, homophobic and racist first waves of feminism. She is the mother of intersectionality. She is the eternal womb of creative activism. She reclaims the Erotic for all women in her poetic essay: “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power.” It is a must read!

“Recognizing the power of the erotic within our lives can give us the energy to pursue genuine change within our world”

Go borrow her wisdom! Thank you Audre Lorde <3

Our Guiding Light: Audre Lorde

Audrey Lorde. JIMI.

In loving memory of JIMI,

A local Isla Vista spirit, a traveler, a lecturer, a collector, and a wisdom spitter. JIMI wanted a wild, naked psychedelic dance party, so this one’s for him. He taught us the art of surrender. “To generalize anyone is to make them your enemy.” There is no one from whom you cannot learn or who cannot learn from you. Many of the ideas we used to conceptualize this event came from the time he gifted us with. THANKYOUJIMI <3

Shrine by Dominic Bacino