YOU ARE MAGIC
In partnership with Camp DEOX, Arts4Impact is headed to Burning Man to create You Are Magic, an evolving, interactive public art activation that celebrates ancient Toltec wisdom and the power of collective intention.
You Are Magic is a codex altar: part sculpture, part whimsical social architecture, part evolving collective archive.
Art Elements
The piece features the Toltec Sun & Moon Eclipse relic, embodying the ancient Mesoamerican idea that the universe is created through complementary forces. Light and darkness. Action and reflection. Masculine and feminine energy, circling, challenging, and sustaining one another. Their meeting creates movement. Their tension creates possibility. The impulse to act and the wisdom to receive. The fire that transforms and the quiet that restores.
The illuminated boxes take their cue from traditional Mexican punched-metal star lanterns, whose intricate openings scatter warm patterns of light. Our team in San Miguel de Allende cut, folded, punched, finished, painted, and assembled every box by hand.
The codex draws inspiration from Arts4Impact’s 2021 Georgia runoff activation. Over six weeks of get-out-the-vote work, Occasional Superstar created a four-story, glow-in-the-dark mural of civil rights leader Hosea Williams, embedded with a secret codex that translated to: FEED THE PEOPLE.
The culminating music and live-art event was featured in the Season 6 premiere of Showtime’s The Circus and helped our partner, BlockPower, turn out 24,000 voters.
art activation
Throughout the burn, DEOX members and the wider community are invited to make an intention by tying a piece of yarn to our altar. Piece by piece, it will become a living communal assemblage, shaped collaboratively in real time.
A core rule: Anyone may add to the altar, but nothing may be removed. If a participant would like to contribute an intention for someone else, we ask that they write a short note beginning with the phrase: “Dear friend, I wish for you…”
These anonymous letters are collected in a shared archive called Box of Possibility, inspired by fellow burner Miki Agrawal. Participants can revisit the box throughout the week to find encouragement, insight, or unexpected emotional resonance.
support the work
We’re raising $4,600 to bring You Are Magic to Camp DEOX without drawing from any funds needed for vital camp infrastructure.
Trusting that the universe will provide: Jerry Isaac is painting the truck mural in Reno; Russell Berusch and Haim Mayan are designing/sourcing the scaffolding in Cleveland; Jacqueline is building the codex panels in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
Grateful for gifts of any size. Small magic counts. All donations are tax-deductible.
Recent efforts include a multi-state GOTV art effort with NOW for the ‘24 election and an Arts Memorial in response to the July 4 mass shooting in Highland Park.
A circle of Mexican artists, makers, and healers created this public gift. The project grew from the symbols, materials, relationships, and work of many hands, including San Miguel de Allende artisans, Juan Manuel Ramirez Copado and José Juan González Yañez.
