A “WIT-ness” is the holder of both Presence and Perception.

Wit (noun) /wɪt/
Wit is an awareness to read, reflect & speak in a way that shifts rooms.

My Story

I have spent years building spaces where sound, light, story, and presence come together and do something to people that is hard to name and easy to feel.

I have seen what happens when a room is held with intention, when conversation is not rushed, when people are given space to arrive fully and recognize each other beyond the surface.

The question underneath everything I build is simple and not simple at all:
“How can community and play rebuild belonging?”

That question came from loss. It came from being in spaces where joy and grief sit next to each other, where laughter carries memory, where people find their way back to themselves through being with others.

The Invitation

Brews 12 v Uno begins with a simple idea: to build a place where strangers sit down together.

In a world where people move past one another without pause, there is a quiet hunger for spaces that allow us to slow down, to be seen, to be in conversation without performance.

This piece reinterprets Hebrews 12:1 through Black celebration, card games, sugary colored drinks, ancestors, and laughter as ways of holding memory and staying connected to something larger than ourselves.

What I am building is a structure where play becomes prayer and memory becomes something you can sit inside of.

The Vision

Brews 12 v Uno is a twenty-foot interactive art installation coming to Burning Man 2026.

At the center stands a glowing vessel rising into a luminous cloud of oversized cards. Stained-glass panels wrap the base, casting color across the ground. A ring of seating invites people into conversation with someone they may have never met.

By day, it stands as a place to pause.
By night, it becomes a circle of light where reflection, laughter, and connection unfold.

This is not simply an object.
It is a structure designed to hold human experience.

Why This Work

I created this work as a Southern Black artist working at the intersection of storytelling, hospitality, and cultural gathering.

This project carries a belief that shared presence is sacred play.

Thousands of people will step into this circle. Many will leave with something that stays with them long after the desert disappears.

The Ask

The total fundraising goal is $40,000.

What is raised now directly determines what gets built, how it stands, and whether it holds the experience it is meant to carry.

Funds support:

Engineering and structural design
Materials and fabrication
Lighting and electrical systems
Transportation to Black Rock City
On-site installation and build crew

This work requires more than vision. It requires a full system that allows it to stand, function, and hold thousands of people.

The Honoraria grant moved this forward. It did not complete it.

This is where support comes in.

How to Help

Choose your giving level:

I’m a WIT-ness ($25)
The Egungun are w/ Us ($75)
Keeper of the cLOUD ($150)
Holder of the Story ($300)
Brews Patron ($750)
Stained-Glass Icon ($2,500)
Beloved Community Connector ($5,000)

If giving is not the way you enter, pass this to someone who would recognize it.

Volunteers, builders, fabricators, and in-kind support such as materials, build space, or housing all directly move this forward.

This work is built by people who decide to be part of it while it is still becoming.

In Closing

If you have ever experienced a moment where being in the right room at the right time changed something in you, then you already understand what this is.

Supporting this project is helping build a place where those moments can happen again and again.

A place where strangers sit down together is not a small idea for me. It is a necessary one.

If this resonates, step into it.

Step into the circle. Help bring Brews 12 v Uno to life.

Thank YOU,
Eric E. Brown, Jr.

✌🏾

Brews 12 v UNO: cLOUD OF WITnesses

Be a WIT-ness and Contribute to this Art Installation