Mission Statement:
We are the heart of the Alberta Burning Man community, empowering and inspiring Burners and newcomers to make art, create connection, and provide an opportunity to experience Burning Man Principles and culture.
The League of Extraordinary Albertans is a volunteer-driven non-profit society and a member of the Burning Man Regional Network. The board works hard to provide opportunities and resources to our members through civic engagement activities, grants, initiatives, and events.
The 10 Principles of Burning Man
Consent
Defined as permission for something to happen or agreement to do something, consent has the support of the whole community. While consent is not an official Principle, it is a crucial part of Burner culture that provides a platform for safe events. In 2020 we updated our Code of Conduct to expand on consent, and we are committed to speaking about it every time the 10 Principles are spoken of, written about, or otherwise discussed.
Radical Inclusion
Anyone may be a part of Burning Man. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community.
Gifting
Burning Man is devoted to acts of gift giving. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value.
Decommodification
In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience.
Radical Self-reliance
Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise and rely on his or her inner resources.
Radical Self-expression
Radical self-expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual. No one other than the individual or a collaborating group can determine its content. It is offered as a gift to others. In this spirit, the giver should respect the rights and liberties of the recipient.
Communal Effort
Our community values creative cooperation and collaboration. We strive to produce, promote and protect social networks, public spaces, works of art, and methods of communication that support such interaction.
Civic Responsibility
We value civil society. Community members who organize events should assume responsibility for public welfare and endeavor to communicate civic responsibilities to participants. They must also assume responsibility for conducting events in accordance with local, state and federal laws.
Leaving No Trace
Our community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves and endeavor, whenever possible, to leave such places in a better state than when we found them.
Participation
Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic. We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve being through doing. Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play. We make the world real through actions that open the heart.
Immediacy
Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture. We seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves, the reality of those around us, participation in society, and contact with a natural world exceeding human powers. No idea can substitute for this experience.
Header Artist Credit: BELIEVE by Laura Kimpton and Jeff Schomberg
Header Photo Credit: Peter Ruprecht
Logo Ten Principles & Consent Credit: “The Ten Symbols” created by Wick (James Wickham), is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.