thetemplecrew.org

projects and information for david best's temple building crew.

Who We Are

We are a group of volunteers who create art installations and structures with reflective and sacred spaces. These have been done for art festivals, as civic projects, and as commissions.

David Best is the principal leader and artist of the majority of the projects. We have no formal heirarchy or structure.

We are a dynamic group of hundreds of people who dedicate everything from hours to months of work on any given project, some anonymously. We have no application process or entrance requirements.

How We Got Started

In 2000, David Best and a group of friends decided to build a structure for the Burning Man art festival, out of reclaimed structural wood and the waste wood from a local toy manufacturer.

Not long before the event, one of the crew members died in a motorcycle accident. The structure was dedicated as a memorial to him, and also as a space for anyone to leave memorials and inscriptions which would be burned with the structure at the end of the festival.

The space became an important part of the fabric of the festival, and David and the crew members realized how important it was to return to build the space again. Others who had seen and understood the need for the space joined in. The Temple Crew was born.

After building several temples for subsequent years of the Burning Man festival, we branched out to doing similar structures in civic settings. One focus became underprivileged and underserved neighborhoods, such as a street in San Rafael, California used by undocumented laborers in search of work, and a blighted neighborhood in Detroit. We were also invited by the city of San Francisco to create a semi-permanent structure as a civic art installation in a new park (installed on the Hayes Green in 2005).

We have other projects planned and in the works.

How To Join The Temple Crew

1) Join our email list (info on the contact page).
2) Watch for announcements of new projects and work parties.
3) Come out to a work party for a project that interests you, to get to know us and see what you can contribute.

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