An installation at the 2014 Burning Man Festival, Playastan Crossroads was a collaboration with Peter Weston and many talented others. Made up of silk, wood, metal, and hand-made books, it measured 65-feet in diameter and rose to a height of 25 feet.

Viewed across the playa, Playastan Crossroads was an oasis of color and pattern emerging from the dust. It was a place to take respite among large-scale moving silk banners, each hand-painted with traditional textiles designs from along the Silk Road. This is the Playastan Crossroads, where the traditions of the past meet the visions of the future. Powered by the wind and the sun, it is a resting point, a crossroads where travelers can share their stories and experience a moment out of time.

Five interconnected elements come together to create the Playastan Crossroads: a forest of painted silk banners, an elegant central wooden structure with benches, artists’ books in which guests can add their thoughts and stories, an ambient soundscape powered by the wind, and a decorative lighting design to entertain nighttime visitors.

Thirty-three unique banners will be hand-painted, using a modified batik process, with traditional textile designs of the peoples who lived along the Silk Road. In shades of violet, deep red, and golden yellow, the banners will gradate in both size and color from the outer ring to the center of the wooden structure, where a golden banner will rise 21 feet above the Playa surface.