A powerful Ukrainian art installation at the Burning Man festival in Nevada was destroyed by hurricane-force winds on August 24, but organizers are working to rebuild the massive sculpture that serves as a warning about dark times facing the world. The 100-foot-tall, eight-ton inflatable artwork called "Black Cloud (2025)" was blown away by a dust storm that struck on the festival's opening day, which coincidentally fell on Ukrainian Independence Day, adding symbolic weight to the destruction.
Created by Ukrainian artist Oleksiy Sai and funded by private donors from Ukraine and the United States, the installation consists of 45 interconnected forms filled with 90,000 cubic feet of air. The sculpture was equipped with 20 strobe lights designed to flash like lightning around the structure, accompanied by a haunting soundscape that mixed the sounds of missiles, sirens, and explosions into a musical composition by war veteran and musician Anatoly Tapolsky, known professionally as DJ Tapolsky.
The installation first premiered in Kyiv in early June with an edited soundscape to avoid traumatizing local residents who live with the reality of war daily. Video performances were created to accompany the installation as it travels globally, including a reading of a Crimean Tatar poem against tyranny that was banned during Soviet times. The artwork represents the third Burning Man installation by this Ukrainian team, following "Phoenix" in 2023 and "I'm Fine" in 2024.
Artist Oleksiy Sai explained his creative process, telling reporters that he simply sees something appearing on the horizon and has the freedom to engage with what looms ahead because of his independence. "That is the essence of an artist's work—to work on what will become significant a little later," Sai said, adding that "sometimes reality overtakes me, rather than the other way around."
Vitaliy Deynega, the general producer of Black Cloud who has been involved in Ukraine's defense since Russia first invaded in 2014 and served as Ukraine's deputy minister of defense for digital transformation in 2023, described the sculpture's destruction in emotional terms. Speaking via satellite from the Black Cloud camp at Burning Man, Deynega said a very strong and sudden wind came with only a 15-minute warning and broke the structure in half. "It felt like one of your relatives suddenly died," he said, comparing the storm to the first moments of Russia's full-scale invasion.
Deynega, who founded Ukrainian Witness, an organization that uses photos, videos, and cultural projects to document the war and tell its story globally, emphasized the installation's broader message. Many people who saw Black Cloud before the storm came to thank the team for the message, he said, because people worldwide are feeling that humanity is on the edge of something dangerous that needs to be avoided. "It's not a Ukrainian conflict, it's already a global conflict on Ukrainian ground," Deynega explained.
The producer stressed the importance of art in conveying Ukraine's message to the world. "Art is the best message possible. It resonates with people's emotions and with experiences everyone has," he said. "It's much better than any kind of news that, for example, something bad happened in Ukraine. Everyone already knows that we have a war, but I want the world to see Ukraine as a country that can make beauty and can make art and that's why we're surviving."
Ukraine's outgoing ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, commented that Black Cloud was intended as a reminder of unseen dangers hanging over everyone. "We cannot control nature and storms, but together with our partners and friends we do have the power to end Russian aggression and secure a just and lasting peace," she said.
Despite the destruction, DJ Tapolsky was scheduled to perform at Burning Man on Thursday, even after slipping and breaking his leg due to wet conditions caused by rain following the dust storm. The Ukrainian Institute had been planning to take Black Cloud on a European tour following Burning Man, with support from Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "It's important to bring this beautiful and powerful work to people in Europe, where Russia's brutal genocidal war is happening as we speak," said Tetyana Filevska, the institute's creative director.
The symbolic destruction took on even greater meaning when, early Thursday morning (August 28), Russia bombarded Kyiv, killing at least 23 people. The timing came less than two weeks after reports of diplomatic discussions about potential peace negotiations. Among the buildings damaged in the strikes were the British Council and European Union Mission buildings, as well as the art workshops of the Kyiv Institute of Automation, known as Nahirna 22. The artistic collective documented the destruction on Instagram, showing blown-out windows, pockmarked walls, and studio spaces reduced to rubble, creating a stark real-world parallel to the destroyed art installation in Nevada's desert.
