Massimo Burgio / Burningmax

Massimo has been part of the Burning Man community for the last 17 years, hence the “playa name” Burningmax he adopted in the last 15 years for everything creative he engages with, from art installation projects to electronic music production.

Over the last few years his art installation work has followed a vision of social activism through art (artivism), developing projects on the topics of civil war (Orwell Monegros Project, 2017), decadence of historic landmarks (Apelle, 2018) and cannabis culture (50 Shades of Green, 2019). H2O is all about the impact of plastic on the environment, and the role of drink corporations in the monopoly of the scarse planetary water resources.

More info at burningmax.com and facebook.com/burningmaxcreative.

Caroline Westberg

Swedish burner, artist and world traveller now established in Rome, Caroline is always up for joining creative projects developed within the burners’ world. As she landed Rome from her previous residence in Amsterdam, Caroline joined the Roman Burners community, getting involved in the organization of many local events, and also in the creation of latest Burningmax’s installation work 50 Shades of Green.

Well organized and always ready for heavy and dirty production work, Caroline is the official H2O project manager, also in charge  for volunteer organization and social media. Basically, this project would have never seen the light without her, and she was the first person who joined the H2O project team.

Follow Caroline’s adventures and her art projects on Instagram.

Julissa Zaida

Julissa was born in Honduras and moved to Rome 15 years ago. Even if she discovered the Burning Man world a couple of years ago, she joined and embraced the burners community in full. Not only she didn’t miss on all major burners gathering and events in Italy, Europe and United States, she also got involved in the organization of local events as well as of theme camps in Black Rock City.

Heavy worker always with a smile, Julissa was also part of the previous project crew for the production of Burningmax’s installation 50 Shades of Green. A great cook, she is also the team ambassador of healthy lifestyle and eating.

Alberto Giorgio

Veteran burner, motorbike rider, sailboat skipper, vintage cocktail master and man of thousand hidden talents, Alberto has been part of the production team of H2O since the first steps of the project.

Alberto also volunteered and heavily contributed to the production of the last two art installation works by Burningmax, 50 Shades of Green and Apelle.

Marta Ronzone

Marta has already been to Burning Man a couple of times, but then she opted out for the smaller, still early stage burners gathering taking place in Brazil, the Tropical Burn. She joined the group of Roman Burners last year, and immediately infused the group with her positive vibes.

Energetic, active and focused, serious but also fun, passionate about all things burner, Marta intercepted our team effort for the H2O project and volunteered to help out during the last month of production work. 

Camilla Pisani

Camilla Pisani is an audiovisual artist and producer based in Rome. She looks for the interaction between space, sounds and abstract graphic signs. Her music is an hybrid, moving into a set of influences: ambient, drone, soundscape, soft noise, and minimal electronic. She composes field recordings, suspended atmospheres, hypnotic textures marked by concrete rhythms.

Camilla is currently busy recording her latest album, but she managed to find some time to dedicate to the H2O project by producing the sound environment of “chaotic waters” triggered by the interaction with the art installation. And, besides the soundscape production, she also volunteered to help out with the physical production and installation work of H2O.

Listen to Camilla Pisani’s music on SoundCloud or BandCamp. Don’t forget to check out also her other production moniker Blue Like A Paradox.

Federico Peliti

Federico is the interaction design and sound artist who helped design and implement the sound interactivity of the H2O art installation.

One third of the Polisonum collective, Federico has been part of the creation of several art and performance pieces designed for contemporary art festivals such as RomaEuropa Festival, Festival di Matera and more, while keeping up with the Polisonum research that make use of sound as a method and device to investigate the metamorphosis of historical and contemporary places, of geographies and landscapes.

Reach Federico at his website federicopeliti.com.

Nicola Pavone

Nicola Pavone (aka Vj Luper) is a video-artist, 3D animator and programmer. His work deals with Architectural Mapping and Interactive Media.

Based between Rome and Prague, Nicola relentlessly explores all possible interactions between sound. movement and space. He also teaches courses and workshops of video-mapping.

Nicola has contributed to the H2O project by offering expert advice on the management of the LED light interactivity of the art installation.

Check out some of Nicola’s latest works on Vimeo.

KJ Paul is a long time veteran burner, urban cowboy and karaoke master of Dutch origins who’s been living in San Francisco for most of his life. Paul has also been Burningmax’s partner in crime, back in 2005, for the epic Black Rock City adventure of The Hammock Hangout, which made them brothers for life.

Paul happened to be in Rome for 3 days at the end of October, and immediately signed up to help with the H2O Project, contributing in a big way at Forte Prenestino on both the structure build and collecting and processing more than 1,000 kgs of used plastic bottles. 

To know more about KJ Paul check his website at kjpaul.com. 

Cecilia Llama

Cecilia Llama is a veteran burner from Madrid who shared more than 10 years of adventures with Burningmax both on and off the burners world. Artist, scenographer, origami expert and street artist, Cecilia goes by the artist name Enllama, and you can find her street interventions with painting, stencils, stickers and origami all over Europe.

Cecilia joined the team for a couple of weeks to help with the final production and testing of the installation, flying from Madrid to Rome just to be part of the H2O Project team.

Check out Cecilia’s artwork and follow her on Instagram @_enllama.

Lele Magnanti

Emanuele, better known as Lele, is a veteran Italian burner, also deeply committed with the burner community at national and European scale. 

Chemist, philosopher, rastafarian, master of esoteric arts, theme camp builder, book writer and public speaker, Lele is also a very good friend, and a highly entertaining man. He joined the H2O team for the last month of the production effort, when some additional help was very much needed.

Learn more about Lele’s passion for the subtle sciences at Novosofia.com.

Bruno Ferraro

Bruno recently joined the burner world, as his first experience at Burning Man was last summer with the Brazilian Tropical Burn, from which he returned full of enthusiasm, energy, and desire of getting more involved with the community.

Graphic designer who speaks several languages and love to travel around the world, Bruno is a very nice, creative, curious and sociable person, and he’s also Marta’s life companion. He joined the H2O production team as he saw how much passion Marta was putting in the project, and at a moment when his craftwork skills were very much needed.

Alina Chernousova

Psychologist, art therapist, 5 rhythms, contact improv and mindfulness star, inspired by ancient Indian yoga practices, Alina was born and raised in Belarus, and moved to Rome a couple of years ago to complete her studies with a master in cognitive neurosciences, while teaching yoga at various venues in town.

Alina met our team at a burner-friendly event in Rome in October, and she immediately hopped on our team to help during the last steps of H2O production. As a plus, she has been offering the team stretching sessions before and after our production efforts. Healthy, useful and fun!

Connect with Alina through her Facebook profile.

Davola

Davola is Massimo’s inseparable four-legged companion, a playful black labrador retriever who tends to become the instant mascotte at any project, event, party of community he joins.

Davola has been an active participant to all of Massimo’s projects of the last 5 years, including projects developed at Burning Man festivals across Europe. He is a total hippie / rave / punk dog, and he’s adorable, specially when he wants to play with you.

During his first couple of years Davola used to keep a blog diary, that you can still check out at burningmax.com/davola.

Karé

Karè is a very talented metalwork artist living and working within the community of Forte Prenestino, where he got in touch with the H2O team and helped in many occasions during the Production stage.

Karé volunteered to be of key support for the transportation and actual Build of the H2O installation in Pigneto.

RGB Light Experience

RGB Light Experience, this year at its fourth edition, stands for Rome Glocal Brightness, and is the first urban festival in Rome dedicated to light and video installations.

The festival takes place across an entire weekend, spreading out on a urban area that involves several neighbourhoods in Rome gravitating around one of the most creative areas of town, the neighbourhood of Pigneto.

RGB Light Experience is definitely the major contributor to the H2O project, not only for selecting the installation among the finalists for the 2019 festival edition, but also for completely financing the project, and for offering logistics and support across the whole production process.

For more info see rgblightfest.com.

OZ Officine Zero

Oz Officine Zero is a multifactory born from the regeneration of an industrial area and a productive space open to the projects of artisans and eco-designers, researchers and students, self-employed workers and social groups, and that follows the values ​​of sustainability and innovation, while applying the methods of circular and collaborative economics, providing spaces, tools and services suitable for developing ideas and sharing skills.

Officine Zero hosted the H2O project for the first part of its production, and the main materials for the installation’s structure have been recovered and upcycled from the vast resources available at OZ. Unfortunately, the OZ community lost its spaces at the end of summer, so the production of H2O moved to the new hosting spaces at Forte Prenestino.

For more info visit officinezero.org.

CSOA Forte Prenestino

CSOA Forte Prenestino is a large social centre and autonomous zone based in an occupied fortress in Centocelle, Rome. Forte Prenestino was occupied in 1986, and in the last 30+ years has been a key node of production of cultural and political events, hosting many groups and a full calendar of cultural, social and political activism events across its 13 hectares of fortified urban space.

Forte Prenestino hosted the last part of the production of H2O once the project lost the spaces at Officine Zero, and has contributed in a big way to the collection and recycling of the plastic bottles needed for the installation, with many members of the community helping at various stages of the H2O production.

For more info visit forteprenestino.net.

Famo Cose

Famo Cose (roman dialect expression that stands for “we make things”) is a Pigneto-based maker space that offered the project support in the initial design of H2O’s interactivity system mostly by putting our team in touch with people who ended up being active contributors to the project, such as the Polisonum collective and Nicola Pavone.

For more info, check out famocose.it.

Made BCN

Made BCN is a maker space and a coworking hub in Barcelona, Spain, created and run by friends who are also very active members of the European community of Burning Man, and who are deeply involved with the organization of local burners events in Barcelona and Catalunya, as well as with the organization of Nowhere, the official European Burning Man annual gathering.

Our friends at Made BCN jumped in to help out and give our team support on all interactivity aspects of the H2O project, specially after they discovered our team’s intention to bring the art installation at next Nowhere 2020 festival.

For more info visit made-bcn.org.

Polisonum

Polisonum is a collective of artistic research that uses sound as investigation device to explore metamorphoses in places of history and contemporaneity, in landscapes and geographies.

The collective, made up of figures that intersect visual arts, sound engineering and technology, places the relationship with the space and the sound flows that animate it at the center of its practice, the starting point for every research, for the realization of works that become sound portraits, containers of stories, transformations, evolutions.

While the main contribution to the H2O project comes from only one member of the collective (Federico), at our first meeting we met the entire collective, and got great input and suggestions about H2O’s sound environment by each member.

More info at the Polisonum website.

Gruppo Porcarelli

Group Porcarelli is a Rome-based environmental and logistic conglomerate of companies operating in the recycling sector. Inspired by a vision of circular economy, and moved by a constant focus on innovation and automation, Gruppo Porcarelli aims and operates beyond waste recycling and towards the mission of “zero waste”, with a constant research of new markets and destinations for the recovered materials, and a commitment also to social and environmental values.

Gruppo Porcarelli supports the H2O project by taking charge of the dismissal of the several cubic meters of plastic bottles collected by our team for the H2O project, collecting and recycling the bottles at the end of RGB Light Experience 2019.

For more info visit porcarelli.com.

Spazio Chirale

Spazio Chirale is the the first maker space that opened in Rome, and part of the FabLab network. The founders of Chirale have an extensive knowledge in Arduino programming, and they supported the project by offering some early tech advice on possible configurations for the Arduino setup.

For more info visit chirale.it.

Bars, hotels and establishments who helped with the bottle collection

Thank you to all the bars, hotels, pizza places, associations and other establishments in the neighbourhoods of Pigneto, Esquilino and Centocelle, who have supported the project by supplying our team with big volumes of used plastic bottles.

Here is the full list, in alphabetical order:

Light Coffee Bistrot

Molino Bakery

Pizza Via Leopardi

Prassede Palace Hotel

Roscioli

Ristorante Man Yi

Saint John Hotel

Sora Nunzia al Colle Oppio

Sushijun

ART INSTALLATION PROJECT BY BURNINGMAX + ROMAN BURNERS + FRIENDS

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