The humble road cone has inspired an 18-metre sculpture which will be set alight in Nevada. Photo: Photo / 123RF
A homage to Auckland mayor Wayne Brown's least favourite symbol of urban living will light up the northern Nevada Desert next month.
Coney McConeface is an 18-metre road cone that is being built by a team of New Zealanders for the infamous Burning Man Festival.
Every year, tens of thousands of people flock to the desert for the festival, where they create a makeshift city that is then set on fire.
Coney McConeface was designed by an artist known as Kiwi. One of the team working on the artwork, Hippathy Valentine, told Checkpoint Coney had many secrets to reveal.
"We're not only building a large traffic cone, but we're building an idol for us to worship," he said.
The team had previously built a temple and a wētā, but burning the cone would be very satisfactory, he said.
"If you like to build burning art, then there's nothing like building a giant chimney, which is basically what a cone is, to burn.
"There's definitely a lot of time and energy being thought about the burning process, and it's going to burn very well."
The cone was being built in Reno, Nevada in a warehouse called the Generator - a large space designed for Burning Man art.
Valentine said the cone was not too hard to move around.
"It's definitely been designed to be made in a structurally simple way to be a kitset, basically a giant Lego set. It's made of wood and it will be painted on top," he said.
"It will look orange and reflective, just like a real traffic cone."
The cone was chosen from hundreds of applications to Burning Man to receive a funding grant, however, its team was still fundraising.
"We still need to raise at least another US$10,000 (NZ$16,000) to be able to see the project through to completion."
The cone would be shipped out to Black Rock City, where Burning Man is held, on 16 August.
Valentine told Checkpoint the team was not taking souvenirs from Aotearoa to Nevada, "except for our passion and love for the traffic cone".
He said other projects in the past, such as the wētā, were put into shipping containers and brought back to New Zealand.
"The wētā lives next to the giant wētā breeding programme at Pūkaha National Wildlife Centre in Mount Bruce now."
However, for Coney McConeface, "it's all built there and it will all turn into ashes there".
The Burning Man festival will be held from 25 August to 2 September.
