The latest edition of Desert X 2025 has officially opened, showcasing newly commissioned site-specific works by artists Kimsooja and Kapwani Kiwanga. As part of an expansive exhibition featuring eleven artists from across the world, these installations explore themes of light, migration, and collective resilience in the desert landscape of the Coachella Valley, California. The exhibition is free and open to the public through May 11, 2025.

Kimsooja’s installation, To Breathe – Coachella Valley, transforms a glass structure in Desert Hot Springs into an ethereal play of light and color. Using a specialized optical film, she envelops the space in shifting spectrums that respond to natural illumination, creating a sensory dialogue with the desert’s vast expanse. Inspired by bottari, the traditional Korean fabric-wrapped bundles, the installation mirrors its counterpart in AlUla, Saudi Arabia, while acknowledging the desert’s historical ties to the U.S. West Coast’s Light and Space movement.

Located near the Palm Springs Visitor Center, Kapwani Kiwanga’s Plotting Rest reinterprets the concept of refuge, freedom, expansiveness and enclosure through a midcentury-inspired pavilion that paradoxically provides no true shelter. Its latticework roof, formed of interlocking triangles, references the “flying geese” quilt motif historically linked to the Underground Railroad, a hidden guide for those escaping slavery. As shifting desert shadows animate the structure, Kiwanga’s work fosters contemplation on survival, migration, and the impermanence of security.

Curated by Neville Wakefield and Kaitlin Garcia-Maestas, Desert X 2025 engages with the transformative interactions between humanity and nature. This year’s exhibition includes works by Sanford Biggers, Jose Dávila, Agnes Denes, Raphael Hefti, Sarah Meyohas, Ronald Rael, Alison Saar, and Muhannad Shono, each addressing themes of temporality, resilience, and alternative ways of perceiving time and space in the desert.

On March 29 and 30 the visitors will be able to engage directly with the artists and curators in discussions centered on collective healing, sustainable land-based futures, and the power of artistic intervention in contemporary discourse. The programs are free but the space is limited it is wiser to rsvp directly on desertx.org for each program.

desertx.org

@_desertx