Artica 2026

This is my second year attending Artica, while the two day independent festival was celebrating its 25th year. At least as far as I’ve experienced it’s the most unique and expressive event St. Louis has to offer. It’s often referred to as St. Louis’ Burning Man—which is fair given the spirit of the thing, the wild aesthetics, and the burning of a massive wooden effigy—but there’s no commerce of any kind allowed, no camping, no Bacchanalian revelry, and while I imagine folks are drinking and partaking in other substances, in my experience it would be a significant misunderstanding to think of it as hedonism.

I noticed a significant difference between this year and last. Last year, as we burned the Lady of Artica, the crowd was beautifully silent. This year, for reasons that are beyond me, somehow our mayor, Cara Spencer, was invited to participate in lighting the blaze. Not only that, an announcement was made over loud speakers moments before that she was among the firefighters and volunteers and would be doing the lighting. Shortly there after a protest call and response rang out — “burn the data center.” That lasted a minute or two before it morphed into a chant expressing displeasure about Mayor Spencer. After this chant began, a counter booing began.

My instinct is that this was all unfortunate. I’m not sure how the mayor became involved, but I don’t think it was appropriate for her to be there. And with that said, I think it’s a weakness of character to respond to an inappropriate error with open aggression. For me it spoiled the moment.

The theologian Soren Kierkegaard wrote about the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious spheres of existence. I love that Artica lives squarely in the aesthetic, and flirts with the spiritual / religious. How unfortunate that—in its own voice, the voice of the people—it should slip in the tawdry realm of the ethical at the most critical moment. Anyhow, I felt compelled to write this out because I doubt there will be any other account of it. Apart from this shortcoming it was as ever brimming with love, joy, community, and creativity.

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