Our Projects

Teddies has been proud to support the following art projects over the years:

TEDDY PORTAL (2025)

The Teddy Portal marks the entrance to the Teddy Temple. A quasi religious feeling was sought after. The portal consists of a wood frame with a thin wooden faceplate. Shapes were cut in the faceplate to reveal translucent acrylic backlit by WS2815 and SK9822 LEDs. A separate internal compartment was built inside to isolate the bear head from the rest of the structure so that the LED colors would not bleed - that way the Teddy head would shine bright steadfastly as the doorway would slowly shift colors around it. The portal was painted with a sunset color gradient, with the top gently fading into a starry night sky.

To make transportation easier, the Teddy Portal is made up of 3 pieces that slot into each other and locked in place with a couple of screws. It is 10' Tall. All electronic components are housed inside the wooden frame, so the only external connector is an IEC power cable. LEDs are controllable via a web portal.

Artist: Wizard

TEDDIES Sign (2025)

To replace aging existing signage, two 92" wide Teddies signs were created. They are constructed with 5mm underlayment, a plywood frame, translucent acrylic, and a wooden faceplate. WS2815 LEDs are glued inside and outside. An SP21 connector was installed in the backing plate, to connect to an external power supply and pixel data supplier. LEDs are addressable and can be controlled via a web portal.

Artist: Wizard

McTEDDIES Sign (2025)

McTeddies is a parody breakfast sandwich giveaway popup. This sign was designed to be a parody of a typical fast food chain. It consists of a wooden frame with backlit translucent acrylic and an external power supply.

Artist: Wizard

Phone Booth (2023)

Phone Booth takes a vintage PacBell phone booth and transforms it into an interactive art piece which prompts the user to record messages, listen to endless prompts and more. The artist writes:

"I infused the booth with a glitchy, dystopian, corporate personality which lured passersby to pick up the handset for great deals, exciting offers, enticing hold music, and delightful new terms of service! Once a customer lead was secured they entered a humorously annoying broken phone tree which gave them opportunities to record and hear confessions and complaints, and constantly tried to guide them to wait on-hold and listen to ads. I created the various voices used in the over 30 minutes of audio in the project with an AI voice generation algorithm. "

Recordings from the 2023 installation of Phone Booth at Burning Man are available at the following link: https://phonebooth.gay/

More project details are available here.

Artists: Sara and Jez

BEARSICLES (2023)

Bearsicles are a 22" wide wood art piece each containing around 500 individually addressable SK9822 LEDs. They are designed to be robust but lightweight.

They are hand cut out of wood and employ a four layer system: thin back plate, 1/2" LED spacer, translucent plastic, thin faceplate. 144/m SK9822 LEDs are mounted to the exterior and interior of the LED spacer layer. The LEDs are controlled with Pixelblazes. Each Bearsicle uses two pixelblazes: one for the interior and one for the exterior. A wifi network is created to sync the bearsicles together, so they display the same pattern.

Five Bearsicles were created in 2023. Two Bearsicles were mounted on individual totem posts and placed outside the camp. A trio of bearsicles was mounted on a 10' tall tripod to be placed on top of the Teddy Dome.

Artist: Wizard

HAMMOCKS (2018)

Hammocks were created in 2018 and provide a beautiful and peaceful spot for relaxation for the weary traveler. Seven hammocks extend radially from a center post, and a tan canvas cloth is hung overhead as shade.

Artist: Alan Chin

Teddies has been proud to assist with incubation of and provide early stage resources to the following theme camps:

EPiphany & Co

Hosted at Teddies between 2018-2019, Epiphany & Co is a jewelry store theme camp that gifts out hundreds of pounds of jewelry each year to the public at Burning Man. Epiphany & Co is now a successful standalone theme camp.

Pho CURE BUrn

Pho Cure Burn is a project that was started by former members of Teddies, and is lead by the former Teddies head chef Michelin. Pho Cure Burn gifts out hundreds of bowls of Pho each year at Burning Man www.phocureburn.com/

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