03 Feb Desert X 2025 Artists Announced: Art, Land, and the Debate Over Power and Place
Desert X announced a return to the Coachella Valley from March 8 to May 11, 2025, once again transforming the desert into a vast, open-air exhibition of contemporary art. This year’s exhibition features eleven international artists, whose works engage with the themes of Indigenous futurism, design activism, colonial power asymmetries, and the impact of humanity on the land
Gardens, photo by Lance Gerber, courtesy Desert X;
As in previous years, Desert X positions itself as a socially and environmentally engaged art project. However, the exhibition continues to be a site of both artistic innovation and critical controversy, with persistent debates over its funding sources, land use, and relationship to Indigenous communities.
The Artists
The 2025 edition, curated by Artistic Director Neville Wakefield and Co-curator Kaitlin Garcia-Maestas, brings together artists who explore nonlinear narratives of desert time, architecture, and the tension between material and immaterial presence. This year’s lineup includes:
Sanford Biggers (USA): His piece Unsui (Mirror) will present towering sequin sculptures evoking Buddhist concepts of impermanence and transformation, with shimmering clouds standing in contrast to the arid desert environment.
Agnes Denes (Hungary/USA): The Living Pyramid is an environmental intervention planted with desert vegetation, transforming over time as a meditation on civilization, ecology, and care.
Jose Dávila (Mexico): The Act of Being Together consists of monolithic marble blocks sourced from Mexico, highlighting themes of displacement, migration, and cross-border connections.
Cannupa Hanska Luger (Indigenous USA): G.H.O.S.T. Ride imagines an Indigenous future shaped by sustainable land-based technologies, critiquing colonial extraction while proposing speculative alternatives.
Kimsooja (Korea/France): To Breathe – Coachella Valley will explore the desert’s ephemeral qualities through a “bottari of light,” linking Desert X with the artist’s work in AlUla, Saudi Arabia.
Kapwani Kiwanga (Canada/France): Plotting Rest references the Underground Railroad through architectural structures that provide symbolic refuge while leaving visitors exposed to the elements.
Ronald Rael (USA): Adobe Oasis revives traditional earthen building techniques through 3D-printed structures, reflecting on ecological resilience and sustainable desert habitation.
Sarah Meyohas (USA): Truth Arrives in Slanted Beams manipulates natural light to create shifting mirages and caustic reflections, engaging with land art traditions.
Raphael Hefti (Switzerland): Five Things You Can’t Wear on TV uses industrial materials to produce a dynamic, wind-activated visual effect that merges natural forces with technology.
Alison Saar (USA): Soul Service Station reimagines a roadside gas station as a spiritual sanctuary, invoking histories of Black migration and roadside culture.
Muhannad Shono (Saudi Arabia): What Remains presents undulating strips of fabric infused with sand, suggesting the instability of land, memory, and identity
The Debate Over Land and Power
While Desert X presents itself as a progressive platform for critical engagement with land, history, and power, its funding and partnerships have sparked significant backlash in recent years.
courtesy Desert X
One major controversy stems from its previous collaborations with the Saudi government’s AlUla arts initiative, which led to the resignation of some Desert X board members in 2020. Although the exhibition does not list Saudi sponsorship for 2025, the inclusion of Saudi artist Muhannad Shono and Kimsooja’s reference to AlUla raises questions about whether those ties remain influential. Critics have argued that accepting funding from an authoritarian regime engaged in human rights violations undermines Desert X’s claims to ethical engagement with history and the environment.
Furthermore, land use issues persist, as many installations are placed on sites with complex histories of displacement, resource extraction, and Indigenous erasure. Desert X acknowledges the Cahuilla People as original stewards of the land, but some activists argue that acknowledgment alone is not enough. Without meaningful partnerships with local Indigenous communities or direct land reparations, the exhibition risks perpetuating the very colonial asymmetries it critiques.
An Exhibition That Challenges – and Is Challenged
Desert X 2025 will offer a compelling lineup of artworks that probe deep questions about time, movement, and land. Yet, the contradictions at the heart of the exhibition remain unresolved. How can a project that claims to critique power structures avoid becoming complicit in them? How does a temporary, outsider-driven art event meaningfully engage with communities who live with the long-term consequences of land appropriation and environmental degradation? Questions that viewers can grapple with in the coming months.
Desert X runs from March 8 to May 11, 2025, with installations spread across the Coachella Valley. Maps and details will be available at desertx.org
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