2011 Model

The 2011 Burning Man theme, "Rites of Passage," explored the ceremonies and rituals that mark life's major transitions — birth, adolescence, love, grief, death. Across cultures and throughout history, these threshold moments have been recognized as requiring some form of ritual acknowledgment: a deliberate pause to mark the change, to leave one identity behind and step into another. Burning Man itself is often described in exactly these terms: participants arrive as one version of themselves and leave having crossed some invisible threshold.

The pin-up aesthetic Steven Fritz chose for this sticker carries its own set of cultural references — the mid-century American pin-up was a rite of passage in a more ironic sense, a symbol of a particular era's ideals of aspiration and glamour. Reimagined in the context of Burning Man's "Rites of Passage" theme, the retro imagery becomes both homage and interrogation: what do we consider a rite of passage, and what does that choice reveal about us?

This sticker was contributed by Steven Fritz for the 2011 event at Black Rock City, Nevada.