Desert X 2025 Features Eleven Site-Specific Installations Exploring Indigenous Futurism and Environmental Themes

From March through May 2025, Desert X presents its fifth edition across California's Coachella Valley with eleven outdoor installations. The exhibition engages themes including indigenous futurism, design activism, colonial power, emerging technologies, and humanity's impact on landscapes. Agnes Denes contributes The Living Pyramid at Sunnylands Center & Gardens, a white pyramid structure planted with native vegetation that evolves throughout the exhibition's duration. Sarah Meyohas creates Truth Arrives in Slanted Beams, an installation using light-shaping methods to project sunlight onto a ribbon-like desert structure, referencing ancient timekeeping technologies and 20th-century land art. Kimsooja presents To Breathe – Coachella Valley, wrapping glass in optical film to create a spectrum of light inspired by Chinese philosophical color theories and Korean bottari traditions. Jose Dávila's The Act of Being Together features unaltered marble blocks transported from a quarry across the U.S.-Mexico border, creating a political statement about migration. Sanford Biggers installs Unsui (Mirror), featuring two 30-foot sequin cloud sculptures drawing from Buddhist symbolism of freedom and interconnection. Other participating artists include Alison Saar, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Kapwani Kiwanga, Muhannad Shono, Raphael Hefti, and Ronald Rael. The exhibition continues through May 11, 2025.