Artist: Chip Snaddon

28 April to 4 May 2025: the clan burns in:

Days
Hours
Minutes
Seconds

Artworks: SpaceArk 2by2, Tree of Stories, The World Is Our Clan, Matjieshuis.
Photos: Sam Arn

AfrikaBurn is a community of participants who come together to create art, costume, performance, theme camps, music, mutant vehicles and much, much more. All of this is created through a volunteer and gifting culture.

The main annual AfrikaBurn event takes place in the Tankwa Karoo, located between the Northern Cape and Western Cape Provinces of South Africa, usually at the end of April every year. 

AfrikaBurn’s aim is to be radically inclusive and accessible to anyone. The touchstone of value in our culture will always be immediacy: experience before theory, moral relationships before politics, survival before services, roles before jobs, ritual before symbolism, work before vested interest, participant support before sponsorship.

Guiding principles

AfrikaBurn is a Burning Man regional event, and our guiding principles are based on the Ten Principles of Burning Man, to which we have added an 11th, in 2011 – Each One Teach One – that encourages the sharing of knowledge.

These principles aren’t commandments, and they’re not rules – they’re ideals that offer guidelines to how we as a community can reinvent the world, and ourselves.

The organisation

Just as our community is made up of volunteers, so is the organisation that stages the annual AfrikaBurn event and related initiatives.

Afrika Burns Creative Projects (AfrikaBurn) was created in 2007 as a Not-For-Profit Company, with the intention that it would serve as a vehicle for the co-ordination of a South African Burning Man regional event.

how we work

As a Non-Profit Company, AfrikaBurn has a two-tiered governance structure consisting of Members and Directors.

AfrikaBurn’s Memorandum of Incorporation (or founding documents) clearly and legally define the organisation’s purpose and object – both of which explicitly include the core principles of Communal Effort, Participation, Civic Responsibility, Immediacy, Decommodification, Gifting, Leaving No Trace, Radical Inclusion, Radical Self-Reliance, Radical Self-Expression and Each One Teach One.

Art & Performances

So here’s the deal: AfrikaBurn isn’t a music festival. What AfrikaBurn is, is a self-organised creative art experiment where you’re invited to be an artist or a performer and to join in and collaborate.

Theme camps

Theme camps are designed and created with the intention of welcoming, engaging and entertaining other participants. Think of them as little villages within the larger village of Tankwa Town.

Mutant vehicles

Mobile art? Damn right. At AfrikaBurn a piece of mobile art is called a Mutant Vehicle and they can include motorised …anything, really. Cars. Bikes. Couches. Bars. Jellyfish. Bees. Mice. Bunnies. Zebra. Pacman. You get the picture.

2024 AfrikaBurn AGM

12 October 2024/

Out of the Blue, it’s our Annual General Meeting on 28 October at 7 pm SAST. It’s when the AfrikaBurn…

2024 Event Survey Results

2 August 2024/

The AfrikaBurn survey analysis team has crunched through the numbers of CREATION … and we’re excited to share the unfiltered(ish)…

CREATION 2024 MOOP Map

2 August 2024/

CREATION was an excellent year for Leave No Trace (LNT), with the majority of our camps and artworks showing up…

2024 AfrikaBurn AGM

Out of the Blue, it’s our Annual General Meeting on 28 October at 7 pm SAST. It’s when the AfrikaBurn...

Image: Gautier Berr

There’s nothing at AfrikaBurn without you!

Nothing at all. Niet. Zilch. Nil. Fokkol. It’s what we bring to the desert and create together that makes AfrikaBurn...

Call for Non-Executive Directors

If you’ve earned your sea-legs on board the good ship AfrikaBurn, if you know how to weather a storm and...






Communications permission: I give my consent to AfrikaBurn to be in touch with me via email using the information I have provided in this form for the purpose of news and updates.

What to expect: If you wish to withdraw your consent and stop hearing from us, simply click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of every email we send or contact us at [email protected]. We value and respect your personal data and privacy. To view our privacy policy, please visit our website. By submitting this form, you agree that we may process your information in accordance with these terms.