2020-2021

Emerging Grace is a wooden effigy of an “Ugly Duckling” that contains a metal sculpture of a swan, which is revealed following the burning of the outside wooden structure.

Swans have featured globally in myths of metamorphoses: Leda & the Swan, the white swan Odette of Swan Lake, the Children of Lir. In each story the swan represents the consequence of a kind of magical spell. But in the story of the Ugly Duckling, the transformation into a Swan is the fulfillment of one’s true nature and acceptance that what makes us different also makes us beautiful.

** Update: While Emerging Grace was awarded a Burning Man Honorarium in 2020 and 2021, Black Rock City was not built in either year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.