A broken piano sits in the sun in Dunn Meadow on February 7, 2018. The piano was there all day, but the piano burning event didn’t start until 5:30.

The hammers rise and fall as someone plays the piano in Dunn Meadow on Wednesday. Most of the keys still worked, but the piano was broken beyond repair.

Pianist Ross Martinie Eiler laughs as he improvises a song on the piano before the event starts. Onlookers were invited to sit down and play if they would like.

Ross Martinie Eiler, an experienced pianist, continues to entertain the crowd by improvising a piece before the piano is burned. The burning was expected to take about three hours, and it was around 20 degrees Fahrenheit.

Annea Lockwood addresses the crowd before the piano is burned. Lockwood has been creating art with broken pianos since 1968.

Annea Lockwood and Jon Vickers, IU Cinema founding director, light the piano on fire using lighter fluid, newspaper, and a lighter. Lockwood began recording the sounds of burning pianos in an attempt to record what fire sounded like.

Eiler plays “Great Balls of Fire” on the piano as it burns. Another crowd member improvised a song as the piano was on fire, but both pianists were pulled away before it became too dangerous.

Smoke quickly rises from the flaming piano in Dunn Meadow on February 7th. A live stream of the event was being shown on the big screen in Franklin Hall for those who couldn’t stand the cold.

Flames lap at the keys of the piano about half an hour into the event. Annea Lockwood overstrings the strings of the pianos she burns so that they will snap when the flames reach them.

The strings of the piano are revealed after the flames destroy the wooden back. Poems from 1968 were recited by members of the Writer’s Guild of Bloomington as the flames roared.

The fire grows as the entire piano is consumed by flames. The event was expected to take three hours but actually went much quicker.

The bench and the piano both collapse into a pile of flames and embers after burning for a little over an hour. The crowd had dwindled greatly from the beginning, but overall the event was a success.

If you drove down Indiana Avenue around 6 pm on February 7th, 2018, you would have seen what looked like a large crowd surrounding a campfire. A closer look, however, would have revealed the upright Henderson piano that was on fire in the middle of Dunn Meadow.

Composer Annea Lockwood set fire to a defunct piano as a part of Indiana University’s Wounded Galaxies: 1968 – Beneath the Paving Stones, the Beach festival. The Wounded Galaxies festival was designed to explore the intellectual and aesthetic legacy of 1968 on this, the 50th anniversary of the year 1968. Lockwood is known for her interesting art pieces involving pianos, such as burning pianos and her “piano garden,” where the instrument was planted in the ground and allowed to be reclaimed by nature.

Microphones and cameras were set up all around the piano on Wednesday, and onlookers took turns playing the piano as the crowd grew. Jon Vickers, the first director of the IU Cinema, introduced Lockwood to a freezing cold audience.

“This idea began, quite literally, with a group of us around a table.” Joan Hawkins, an organizer of Wounded Galaxies, said to the crowd. “We heard about Annea Lockwood and we said, ‘we have to do this in 2018.'”

Annea Lockwood and Jon Vickers utilized lighter fluid and newspaper to start the fire, then stood in the crowd and watched the piano burn. A couple pianists even played the piano as it was on fire, but were stopped before it became too dangerous. Members of the Writer’s Guild of Bloomington read poems as the fire blazed, and the piano made interesting noises as the strings inside began to snap.

“We are involved in it now, revolution, up to our knees and the tide is rising, I embrace strangers on the street, filled with their love and mine,” Joan Hawkins recited from the poem “April Fool Birthday Poem for Grandma” by Diane Di Prima. The poem embodies the 1968 spirit of revolution that the festival aimed to celebrate.

The crowd drew in as close as they could to the flames, holding cell phones and cameras as they ooh-ed and ahh-ed. A firetruck sat nearby in case of emergency, but ultimately wasn’t needed. The piano burned for close to two hours before the whole thing collapsed into a pile of embers.

Annea Lockwood’s piano burning showed that the destruction of something beautiful can be beautiful in its own way, and that even things beyond repair can have a second life. In celebration of Lockwood, the next time you decide to throw out something broken, maybe give it a second thought.