She once overlooked the dusty playa of Black Rock City, a naked form of bent steel standing serenely in mountain pose. Now, R-Evolution, a 45-foot sculpture by artist Marco Cochrane, is set to come to the nation’s front yard—and stay there for four months.

“We’re going to be able to have a truly Burning Man-scale installation on the Mall with all of the inspiration that comes from that,” says Robert “Roman” Haferd, co-founder and board member of Catharsis on the Mall, which is bringing the work to D.C. “It’s something very different from the type of monuments that you’re typically encountering on the National Mall.”

R-Evolution will be a visual focal point of the annual multi-day event—a combination vigil, dance party, and burn ceremony—set to take place from Nov. 10-12 near the Washington Monument. After the event, the sculpture will remain standing, facing the White House, until March of 2018.

According to the artist, it is “intended to challenge the viewer to see past the sexual charge that has developed around the female body, to the person: to de-objectify women and inspire people across the world to take action to end violence against women, create space for women’s voices and demand equal rights for all, thus allowing everyone to live fully and thrive.”

Catharsis is not affiliated with Burning Man or its regional events, but it shares much of the same ethos—and fascination with large-scale artworks (a 60-foot dragon put in an appearance last year), free expression, and ceremonial burning events.

“It is an annual public vigil that’s dedicated to building community by creating space for healing and transformation on the National Mall, coinciding with Veterans Day weekend,” explains volunteer Lauren Berlekamp.

The centerpiece is a ceremonial burn, which attendees describe as a healing, awe-inspiring moment. Artist Michael Verdon is returning for a third year to build a temple that will go up in flames.

While the D.C. Fire Department issued a waiver in 2015 to allow for a large blaze in Catharsis’ inaugural year, the National Park Service changed its fire policy last year. Organizers sued NPS over the new regulations, arguing the event constitutes a ritual experience protected by the First Amendment, but they were still forced to scale back to three smaller fires.

“We are planning to burn at least one ceremonial artwork this year in accordance with the National Parks Service guidelines,” Haferd says. “We have not yet released the designs and are working with NPS to secure the proper permit.”

In keeping with past years, Catharsis organizers have chosen an artistic focus that guides the event. Previous themes have focused on healing from the drug war and trauma. In a time of intense political and social divisions, they have chosen “nurturing the heart” for 2017.

“The division of left and right, right and wrong, criminals and heroes, 1 percent versus the 99 percent, us and them… there’s the place of the heart where narratives fall away and we can point to the deeper things that allow us to recognize that every human and every living thing is sacred and deserving of love and honor,” Berlekamp says. “When we see clearly that each is connected to the whole, we can acknowledge the radical truth that to love our neighbor is to love ourselves.”

In keeping with that notion, they are spotlighting the Equal Rights Amendment in conjunction with the group Equal Means Equal. The ERA, which guarantees equal rights regardless of sex, fell short of the threshold to become a constitutional amendment by three states by a 1982 deadline, though activists argue that time limit is irrelevant. Nevada lawmakers voted to ratify the ERA in March.

“Only 8 percent of monuments in the U.S. are of women. There is a serious imbalance and its symptoms are deeply wounding for many women who feel oppressed by the notion that we are ‘less than’ our fellow male citizens,” says artist and activist Natalie White, who painted “ERA NOW” with red paint on the steps to the U.S. Capitol last year. “For our nation to heal from this trauma, there must true acknowledgement of our equality as human beings. For me, holding this vigil to create awareness around how close we truly are will be a catalyst for achieving this balance and finally getting Constitutional equality.”

Enter R-Evolution.

She is the third in a series of three, large-scale sculptures that each debuted at Burning Man in different years. Cochrane, the artist, collaborated with his muse and model Deja Solis on each of the works, in which she chose how to express herself in the poses.

The works came out of a formative experience for Cochrane: at age seven, he learned that a close friend had been raped and, as he describes it, there were no consequences and it was never discussed again.

“It became something I thought about all the time … how is it possible that people just let this happen?” he asks. “It’s really just one aspect of a system that’s run completely by men.”

Either a woman is treated as a sex object or as the competition of a sex object, Cochrane says. “It overshadows everything, and it gets in the way of being effective in the world.” In a world facing environmental devastation, war, and economic equality, he argues that the only way such problems will be solved are by treating women as equals.

Cochrane’s creative partner Julia Whitelaw explains that for 25 years, he made smaller bronze sculptures with the same ethos, but the taboo of a naked female body got in the way of the message. “What he really wanted was [for viewers] to pay attention, to look past their body, to what they were saying, the emotion, the humanity,” she says. But it only really clicked when he scaled them up—way, way up.

It will take a crew of six men and two semis to bring R-Evolution from San Francisco, and six days to put it together once they arrive.

“These sculptures are huge and very difficult to place, and we don’t send them to random festivals,” Whitelaw says. “Not just for monetary reasons. There would need to be a reason… We would need to be saying something.”

The second of the three works, Truth is Beauty (it currently stands in San Leandro, Ca. somewhat controversially), has a quote written at its base: “What would the world be like if women were safe?”

“This is sort of the theme that we’re asking, that we’ve asked people to imagine,” explains Whitelaw. “What would it be like if women were safe. Not if we felt safe. What would it look like if we were safe?”

R-Evolution, they say, is the answer.

“Having that on the Mall in D.C., where she’s just standing there holding her own space—just being. It’s not aggressive. It’s just ‘I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. I have a right to be in this space. I have an equal right to be in this space.’ It’s an incredible message,” she says.

The Catharsis organizers are working with NPS to secure a permit to allow the sculpture to stay up through the end of March of 2018, so long as there is always at least one person at the site 24/7. A series of additional events surrounding R-Evolution are in the works, though details haven’t been released.

As for the pronunciation of the name of the piece, it’s an open question. Says Whitelaw: “Is it a revolution, or our evolution?”

Catharsis organizers have set up a crowdfunding page to raise the funds necessary to bring R-Evolution to D.C. To donate or volunteer for the 24/7 vigil, see the Generosity page. More details about the event are available here.

Previously:
Organizers Of Planned Burn Ceremony On Mall Sue NPS Over Fire Policy
A Ceremonial Temple Burning Will Once Again Take Place On The Mall
Photos: From The Flames, ‘Catharsis’ On The National Mall
For 48-Hours, D.C.’s ‘Activist Creative Community’ Will Do Yoga, Cathartic Dance, And Burn A Temple On The Mall
Activists Plan To Burn A Huge Temple On The Mall To ‘Heal From The Drug War’