In his day-to-day life, Nigel Brooks of San Diego is a grant writer. But at the Burning Man Project, he looks like a modern primitive — seated cross-legged like an idol in a 4-foot-
square steel box, his chest marked by a hand print and his body painted the same chalk white of the dusty Nevada desert behind him.

His image was captured on film by two Arizona men, landscape architect Bill Tonnesen and photographer John Romero. Brooks’ portrait, and others like it, are part of the exhibit “Box People at Burning Man” currently on display at Chiaroscuro Gallery in Scottsdale.

The main group of photographs are on display in the gallery’s sunken belly. Against the far wall, three large portraits hang side by side. Smaller photos, 12-by-12 inches square, flank the two side walls.

The sepia-toned prints document a handful of the 30,000 people that attended the 2003 Burning Man project — an annual, week-long event without rules or dress code, where the only thing for sale is coffee, ice and the $250 admission ticket.

“What’s unusual about Burning Man,” Tonnesen says, “is the lack of commercialism. There are no organizers with microphones thanking everybody for coming or advising (people) to go here or do this or do that. The main event of the entire week is the Burning (of a 70-foot tall effigy). It’s like there’s a critical mass rally that just happens, where thousands of topless women ride bicycles in a giant circle around the playa (dry lake bed the event is held on).”

Romero is a Burning Man veteran — he’s been to the event three times. But Tonnesen hadn’t heard about it until Romero mentioned he was going again. Tonnesen, who was looking for a new art project, realized he’d found a perfect opportunity. During Tonnesen’s previous exhibit at Chiaroscuro, he displayed 4-foot steel frames. After the show, he had the idea to extend the frames into a cube, put people inside and collaborate with a photographer to record the images as performance/
installation pieces.

“I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to find interesting people to put inside the steel box,” he says.
“We pushed the box about a mile onto the playa near what’s called Main Camp,” Tonnesen says, “and watched people walk by.” The pair signaled to each other with their hands when they saw potential subjects, then asked the passers-by to climb inside the cube, as-is, and snapped their picture with a medium format Hasselblad camera.

Their images chronicle a dizzying variety of people and costumes: A veiled woman shrouded in black; one man, serene as a Buddha, wearing only jewelry and shoes; a mechanical engineer from West Jordan, Utah, dressed as the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz. Then there’s the image Tonnesen and Romero consider their best: Vanessa Bonet, kneeling in a white dress made out of plastic sporks, a white tank-top and a hat trimmed with white mice.

But “Box People at Burning Man” isn’t only about people in crazy costumes. The exhibit works because of it’s honesty. The photographs are simple and stark, showing a different side of these everyday men and women, who escaped to a temporary desert community unfettered by commercialism.

“We were looking for people who were living the life as opposed to store-bought dress up,” Tonnesen says. “Essentially we were looking for the genuine article and hope that our photographs reflect that creative diversity.”

Tonnesen and Romero plan to attend Burning Man 2004 at the end of August to document a new set of faces.
“I already have my tickets. I’m hoping to continue this. We’re trying to find a sponsor to help get us there again and a publisher to do a book,” Tonnesen says.

But will they bring the box? Or try something new?

“Oh, no, no, no,” Tonnesen says. “Definitely the box. The box is a permanent theme.”