In Burning Man 2026: Mandalas of Connection, Yuqun Huang centers the work around five mandala portraits of participants from different ethnic backgrounds, connected through transitions that move from one face to another — each seeing and being seen. This project is a reimagining and expansion of Huang’s 2023 concept Mantras of Burning Man. Where the earlier work used mandalas as a metaphor for individual and collective identity, this new iteration introduces a new visual language: sand. Grains of sand drift, converge, and dissolve — assembling the iconic Main Temples from Burning Man’s history before returning to nothing. The reference is deliberate: Tibetan Buddhist monks spend days constructing intricate sand mandalas, only to sweep them away upon completion. Creation and destruction are not opposites here — they are the same gesture. This mirrors Burning Man’s most sacred ritual, where the Temple, built over months, is surrendered to fire in a single night.
This conceptual framework builds upon the cosmological structure of the Tibetan sand mandala, which divides existence into two interrelated realms: the material world — place, space, and sacred ground — and the sentient world — the beings who inhabit and give meaning to it. This dual structure was already established in the original 2023 project and is further refined and expanded in the 2026 iteration.
In the film, the Main Temples embody the material world, while five meticulously designed mandalas represent the sentient world — the people who give Burning Man its life. In the 2026 version, these five mandalas — representing Asian American, African American, Native American, Native Hawaiian, and European American communities — have been redesigned and reanimated, incorporating deeper cultural research, expanded visual languages, and a wider range of media. Huang begins with the original hand-drawn compositions from 2023 as a structural foundation, enhancing them through AI-driven lighting and detail, and bringing them into motion through a hybrid workflow combining Cinema 4D and AI. In addition, Huang introduces a newly designed main title typography for the film, rendered in a raw, weathered aesthetic reminiscent of Mad Max. This typographic treatment echoes the harsh materiality of the desert landscape, further grounding the film’s visual world.
Burning Man 2026: Mandalas of Connection is more than a festival promo — it is an invitation to encounter. Between the gathering and dissolving of sand, between five faces finding one another, the spirit at the heart of Burning Man is reignited: Every person arrives at this desert carrying their own culture, their own story, and it is only in the moment of truly seeing each other that the festival truly begins. In 2026, come to Black Rock City — and become part of this mandala.

Based in Los Angeles, Yuqun Huang is a motion designer focusing on 3D look development and title design. She has contributed to projects for Disney, HBO, Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon, including the Emmy-nominated title sequence for House of the Dragon. She also worked on look development for the main titles of Disney’s Lilo & Stitch and the main-on-end credits for Mufasa: The Lion King, The Burbs (2026), Hijack Season 2 (2026). She is also the recipient of multiple international honors, including awards from the MUSE Creative Awards, MUSE Design Awards, MarCom Awards, Hermes Creative Awards, AVA Digital Awards, dotCOMM Awards, and Viddy Awards, along with recognition from the IDA Design Awards, the London International Creative Competition, and Creative Quarterly.