KURENIVKA Apply · 2027
Sorry by Oleksiy Sai: the word sorry:| in glowing white pixel-letter lamps against the night

Art · 2018 · Playa art

Sorry

Glowing pixel letters laid flat on the playa in the year Burning Man lost its founder.

2018 was the year Burning Man's founder Larry Harvey died. Oleksiy Sai planned to bring Time to Say Goodbye to the playa with Kurenivka: a tunnel of raster lamps, dark at one end and blinding with light at the other. The grant covered only the lamps.

So the lamps became one word: Sorry. An apology, and a farewell. Sai calls it a neutral and calm sign of ignorance, a word that is easy to hide behind.

Laid out on the playa, the word ran 25 metres. It took three days to build and two more to find missing parts, and a storm killed two brand-new generators before the launch; a neighbouring camp lent its spare.

On the playa the letters lay flat on the ground. Looking at them, Sai decided that next time his letters would stand, and they did.

Read the 2018 chapter →Sorry on Oleksiy Sai's site ↗

Film

Photographs

Drone at dusk: Sorry glowing green-white, lying flat on the dark playa, city lights and mountains beyond

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Credits

Artist
Oleksiy Sai
Co-creator
Svitlana Ratoshniuk
Curator, Ukraine
Oleksii Novikov
Logistics support
Nova Ukraine, Consulate General of Ukraine in San Francisco
Funding
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine
Produced with
Kurenivka camp

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