Well, as the loveliest trash pandas, we firmly believe that sustainability, alternative energy sources, as well as the 4Rs (Reuse, Reduce, Rethink, Recycle) are crucial in our daily human (and raccoon) lives. A raccoon can be crafty and resourceful, responsible and playful, but above all – curious and friendly.
The origin story of Raccoons traces back to a time an unknown amount of years ago (anytime between 4 and 12) when our Raccoon Godfather (Giedrius a.k.a. Goku) was raccooning on the playa. Sometimes "invading" camps during the event and doing pop-up workshops with the stuff that's considered trash – like bracelets from beer can openers, spare bike parts etc.
He also had a project of collecting the bikes that people leave on the playa, shipping them to Lithuania and organizing workshops for people to come and repair them as well as turn them into art bikes. Since there were a lot of bikes left over even after a few years of these activities, some of them were used in an initiative by other LT burner community members last year in a creative camp for Ukrainian kids – they could come, learn to repair the bikes in workshops, as well as add their own creative touch to it and keep their creation afterwards. Here's a little throwback to that.
ANYWAY, Raccoons as an actual camp is a very new concept – it's only our third year, so we're still building our base of members as well as assets. Two years we started completely from scratch, from the ground up. We're still evolving and a lot of the things aren't defined – so you're coming in a time where you can help to shape the camp. It’s super exciting!
The raccooning/sustainability theme is something that we will follow – reusing things that other people leave behind (from bikes to kitchen appliances) or give away for free – for example the Animal Farm we built last year, this creative place where we shared music, stories and drinks. All its structures, woods will be used to build a Racoon nest a big structure in the front of our camp in Burning Man 2024.
Also because our budget is still mostly going towards the basic necessities, partly because we want to try and reduce the amount of waste that BM produces. We want to be sustainable raccoons.
The camp was inhabited by around 75 creatures, two teddy bears, and plenty of unicorns; however, quite a few of them were adopted by new owners (unicorns, not Raccoons). The camp opened its doors to everyone who were willing to join and contribute to its awesomeness - last year it was Lithuanians, Latvians, Spanish, Ukrainians, Americans, Canadiens, French and more!
Trash pandas have worked together to build a welcoming Camp for every creature wanting to stop by - there were workshops of repurposing trash items into useful knick-knacks and jewelry, workshops of creating your own lights for the playa as well as bar and music. We also have an animal farm where we had a bar and playing music.
The great thing is that each Raccoon can be a creator within the Camp - we build together, cook together, create workshops together, party together, live, cry, laugh - we are a family!
What's special about the 2023 Burning Man BRC Racoons? Dominyka shares that "well, being Raccoons, we feel that we are already ready to take over the playa ;) Tails swinging left and right, we will be Raccooning like there is no tomorrow!"