How does your work address the relationship between the human and natural worlds?
 

I am often struck by the distance we live apart from the sources of life that sustain us -- the bees who carry the grains of pollen, The grass that holds the soil in place when it rains, the trees that maintain our atmosphere – these are all characters in the stories I create. I want that distance to be closed. I would like for us all to awaken from the human centric illusion that we are separate and not part of nature. The images I create place humans in the role of resisting the destructive excesses we have built and reuniting ourselves with the Earth.

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Biography

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Jan Burger is a puppeteer, visual artist and activist. He walks on stilts, leads big art builds and draws a lot.

 

He is the co-founder of Paperhand Puppet Intervention. Paperhand has been creating huge, annual, community pageants in Chapel Hill, North Carolina for twenty years. The pageants are crafted to speak to the heart of audiences -- reinventing myths for our everyday lives. 

 

Outside the theater he uses his puppets and banners, to bring the collective power of large scale art to marches and direct actions. 

 

Part of his work involves intricate images often cut from paper that are turned into posters and banners to help tell a story and give power to campaigns for the climate and environmental justice.

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