11 artists arrive to coachella valley for desert x 2025
Stretching across California’s Coachella Valley, the 2025 edition of Desert X transforms the desert into a living conversation between art, land, and time. Through eleven newly commissioned installations, artists from Asia, Europe, the Americas, and the Middle East engage with the desert’s vastness as both subject and collaborator. The artworks confront the weight of history embedded in the landscape while speculating on its future, addressing themes of Indigenous futurism, design activism, and the imprint of human intervention.
Some pieces take on solid architectural forms, asserting a presence in the shifting terrain, while others embrace the ephemeral, using wind, light, and movement to underscore the desert’s constant state of flux. In a region where wilderness and urban expansion collide, these works challenge perceptions of permanence, inviting visitors to reconsider the desert not as an empty expanse but as a layered site of memory, transformation, and resistance. The works will be on view across the Coachella Valley from March 8th — May 11th, 2025
Coachella Valley, California | image © Lance Gerber
monumental artworks draw from ancestral wisdom
From Sanford Biggers’ explorations of cultural symbology to Agnes Denes’ meditations on ecological stewardship, each installation for Desert X 2025 offers a distinct lens on the complexities of desert life in California. Ronald Rael and Cannupa Hanska Luger draw from Indigenous knowledge to propose alternative ways of engaging with land. Meanwhile, Raphael Hefti, Jose Dávila, and Sarah Meyohas examine the shifting boundaries between technology and nature.
At once speculative and deeply rooted, the works on view stretch across time — drawing from ancestral wisdom while interrogating the asymmetries of colonial power and the accelerating impact of emerging technologies. In its fifth iteration, Desert X continues to use the desert as a space of inquiry, where art reflects, reframes, and reimagines our relationship with the world we inhabit.
Jose Dávila, The act of being together, Desert X 2025 | image © Lance Gerber
Jose Dávila’s ‘The act of being together’ explores material density, gravity, and time through a series of unaltered marble blocks sourced from a quarry just across the U.S.–Mexico border. Inspired by Robert Smithson’s site/nonsite dialectics, the artist establishes a relationship between absence and presence, migration, and transformation.
As the stones traverse both physical and metaphorical borders, they evoke unseen histories and future possibilities, appearing as if splintered across time and space. Their casual arrangement suggests archaeological ruins in reverse — simultaneously remnants of the past and markers of an emerging future — inviting reflection on human transience within an expansive and shifting landscape.
Sarah Meyohas, Truth Arrives in Slanted Beams, Desert X 2025 | image © Lance Gerber
Sarah Meyohas’ completes ‘Truth Arrives in Slanted Beams’ as an immersive installation that merges analog and digital technologies to explore perception and light. Situated in the Palm Desert, the artist‘s work harnesses ‘caustics’ — light patterns formed by refraction and reflection — projecting sunlight onto a ribbon-like structure cascading across the landscape.
Inspired by ancient timekeeping and 20th-century land art, the installation features mirrored panels designed through computer algorithms, each inscribed with the poetic phrase, ‘truth arrives in slanted beams.’ As visitors adjust the mirrors, they reveal shifting projections, illusions, and patterns, evoking a mirage-like longing for water in the arid expanse.
Ronald Rael, Adobe Oasis, Desert X 2025 | image © Lance Gerber
‘Adobe Oasis’ by Ronald Rael is a sculptural demonstration of the revival of ancestral building techniques through contemporary technology. Situated in Palm Springs, the installation reimagines the potential of adobe — an ancient, sustainable material — through an innovative 3D-printing process.
Drawing inspiration from Indigenous and earthen construction traditions, the artist’s corrugated mud structures echo the texture of palm trees, referencing the enduring oases of the Coachella Valley. Set against relics of western expansion and modern real estate, Adobe Oasis presents a compelling alternative to environmentally harmful architecture, emphasizing adobe’s affordability, energy efficiency, and resilience.
Sanford Biggers, Unsui (Mirror), Desert X 2025 | image © Lance Gerber
Sanford Biggers’ ‘Unsui (Mirror)’ is a monumental sequin-covered sculpture at the James O. Jessie Desert Highland Unity Center in Palm Springs. Towering over thirty feet, the shimmering cloud forms draw from Buddhist concepts of unsui (‘clouds and water’ in Japanese), symbolizing movement, transformation, and interconnection.
Reflecting sunlight and shifting with the wind, the sculptures evoke both the ephemeral and the eternal, mirroring the interplay between natural forces and cultural narratives. Rooted in the artist’s broader practice of remixing historical symbols, the work also acknowledges the history of the surrounding Black community, which was formed after the displacement of residents from Section 14 in the 1960s. In this context, Unsui (Mirror) stands as both a meditation on freedom and a symbol of resilience.
Alison Saar, Soul Service Station, Desert X 2025 | image © Lance Gerber
Alison Saar’s ‘Soul Service Station’ is a desert resting place that offers spiritual replenishment in the form of art, poetry, and communal engagement. Inspired by the gas stations of the American West, the artist’s station brings healing and renewal. At its heart stands a hand-carved female guardian, symbolizing strength and protection.
Inside, an assemblage of devotional objects and furnishings crafted from salvaged materials merge Saar’s transformative practice with community collaboration, including foil repoussé medallions created by Coachella Valley students. A repurposed gas pump plays poetry by Harryette Mullen, further enriching the experience. Rooted in Saar’s exploration of cultural memory, Black female identity, and spiritual traditions, Soul Service Station is a refuge for weary travelers, inviting them to pause, reflect, and recharge.