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Draft:Will Roger

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Will Roger
Born
Will Roger Peterson
OccupationPhotography
Known forCo-founding Black Rock City, LLC
Spouse
  • Crimson Rose
    ​
    (m. 2012)​

Will Roger is an American photographer. He is one of the six founders of Black Rock City, LLC- the organization behind Burning Man, an annual arts event in a remote area of northern Nevada.[1] During his tenure as the LLC's Nevada relations director, Roger oversaw the annual construction of Black Rock City for the event. In 2019, he published a book of aerial photographs documenting the annual emergence of Black Rock City between 2005 to 2018.

Career

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Burning Man

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Roger first attended Burning Man in 1994, where he met Larry Harvey, one of the event founders.[2] Roger later joined the Burning man leadership and created the Black Rock City Department of Public Works (referred to as the DPW), the volunteer workforce that currently runs Burning Man.[3] In 1999, Roger, Crimson Rose, Michael Mikel, Marian Goodell, Harley K. Dubois, and Larry Harvey founded Black Rock City LLC for the purpose of formally organizing the annual Burning Man event. The LLC became a subsidiary of the Burning Man Project in 2013[4][5] and Roger is a member of the Burning Man board of Trustees. He was expelled from the board in 2003[2] and reinstated at a later date.[when?]

Photography

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In 2014, Roger toured a series of erotic black and white photographs in an exhibition called "Provocative Portraits."[6]

Roger takes photographs using a drone during the Burning Man event, one of the few allowed to do so. In 2019, he published a collection of his aerial photography in a book titled Compass of the Ephemeral. The book documents a decade of transformation of empty desert into a city (Black Rock City), and the intersection of art with the environment.[7][8]

Roger's work is in the collection of the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV.[9]

Conservation

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Roger serves as the vice president of Friends of Black Rock-High Rock, a conservation group.[10] He maintains "the labrynth," a landmark in Gerlach, Nevada, a mile-long maze constructed of thousands of rocks arrayed along the ground (modeled after the Chartres Cathedral labrynth in France). He is a plaintiff in an ongoing lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management concerning the building of a geothermal project in northern Nevada.[11][12][13]

Personal Life

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He was married to photographer Marilyn Bridges from 1977 to 1987. In 2012, he married fellow Burning Man co-founder Crimson Rose. They live between Gerlach, Nevada, and Oakland, California.[12]

Exhibitions

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  • Las Vegas Sin City Gallery, "Provocative Portraits" (October 18 – November 1, 2014)
  • Sierra Arts Foundation, "Provocative Portraits" (November 4 – 26, 2014)
  • Cincinnati Art Museum, "No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man." (April 26 – September 2, 2016)[14][15]
  • Senate Russell Building Rotunda Washington D.C., "Home Means Nevada" (September 26, 2016)[16]
  • Nevada Museum of Art, "City of Dust: The Evolution of Burning Man" (July 1 – January 7, 2018)[17]

References

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  1. ^ Shister, Neil (2019). Radical Ritual: How Burning Man Changed the World. Catapult. p. 24. ISBN 9781640093904.
  2. ^ a b Kane, Jenny (August 11, 2016). "Burning Man turns 30: The untold lives of Nevada's Burner royalty". Reno Gazette Journal. Retrieved September 27, 2024.
  3. ^ Simonson, Lily (October 27, 2011). "Working for The Man: Building Burning Man's Infrastructure". Art21 Magazine. Retrieved October 3, 2024.
  4. ^ Kane, Jenny (January 29, 2015). "Tax docs: Burning Man founders sold festival for $276K". Reno Gazette Journal. Retrieved October 3, 2024.
  5. ^ Redmond, Tim (February 16, 2015). "The secrets of Burning Man's money". 48 hills. Retrieved October 3, 2024.
  6. ^ X, Oliver (October 29, 2014). "Will Roger Peterson, Provocative Portraits at the Sierra Nevada Arts Foundation". issuu.com. Reno Tahoe Tonight. pp. 17–21. Retrieved February 24, 2025.
  7. ^ Cascone, Sarah (August 9, 2019). "A Man Who Has Attended Burning Man for Decades Captured the Event From His Airplane—See His Stunning Photos Here". Artnet News. Retrieved February 24, 2025.
  8. ^ Katz, Nancy (October 10, 2018). "Smallworks Press to Publish Book by Burning Man Co-Founder Documenting Evolution of Festival's Physical Space in Nevada's Black Rock Desert". Nevada Business Magazine. Retrieved October 3, 2024.
  9. ^ "Collections. Will Roger Peterson". Nevada Museum of Art. Retrieved February 24, 2025.
  10. ^ Roeder, Oliver (February 8, 2017). "The Darkest Town In America". FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved February 24, 2025.
  11. ^ Jones Thompson, Maryann (March 13, 2023). "Burning Man Fights To Save Its New Home in the Old West". The San Francisco Standard. Retrieved September 27, 2024.
  12. ^ a b Conrad, Bob (April 5, 2023). "New plaintiffs sign on to lawsuit against BLM over Gerlach geothermal project". This Is Reno. Retrieved October 3, 2024.
  13. ^ Paul, Arielle (May 17, 2023). "Burning Man Becomes Latest Adversary in Geothermal Feud". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 17, 2023. Retrieved October 3, 2024.
  14. ^ "First look at Burning Man exhibit at Cincinnati Art Museum". The Enquirer. Retrieved February 24, 2025.
  15. ^ Staff, CityBeat. "Everything We Saw at Cincinnati Art Museum's 'No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man' Exhibition". Cincinnati CityBeat. Retrieved February 24, 2025.
  16. ^ "Home Means Nevada". Nevada Arts Council. Retrieved February 24, 2025.
  17. ^ "A Long, Strange Trip". Tahoe Quarterly. June 22, 2017. Retrieved February 24, 2025.
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