Larry, and the birth of Kiwiburn

Hola I wanted to give some recollections and thoughts on the passing of LARRY HARVEY, the founder of Burningman. It’s hard to fathom the magnitude of his contribution to all of us. There was forethought, combined with a pure sense of the “here and now” that motivated him into doing that first burn on Baker Beach, and to then go from there. He captured us at a time when we needed to be captured. His capture of me and Jane was instantaneous when we stumbled across burningman in 1994…population 2000 strong in those days. As I’ve said before I knew this was a life changing event for us, and it’s proven to be the case over the course of time. My partner Jane and I would occasionally socialise with Larry and Marian at the Blue Lamp bar in Reno while we were living there (1993-98) so were privy to a lot of the word on Burningman (at the time Burningman was struggling with Nevada political rednecks who wanted the event GONE)………. Then fast forward to living back in NZ and my wanting to try Burningman culture out in NZ…. i vividly remember sitting in the boardroom of Burningman (I was fortuitously In the city for a work conference) in late 2003 making the case to establish the first ever international regional …..and here in NZ. The younger folk (now distinguished burner folk like Actiongrl and Raspaman) were skeptical….until LARRY himself walked over to the world map and pointed to New Zealand….and said “this is brilliant….this is what burningman needs to do”. His vision was that Burningman would only have longevity if it went widely to the regions. So Kiwiburn history started with the number 1 in earliest 2004, and the rest is a history of hard passionate work from our ever-growing community. So I write the above because l wanted to comment on Larry’s passing in a way that allows you to understand how significant he was for all of us in Kiwiburnland. LARRY is where we have come from, and he will continue to influence where we are going. Yonderman Kiwiburn Founder ps pic is of me with Larry at the 2007 Regionals party.

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