![]() ![]() Marina Tabassum, Khudi Bari (film still), 2023, commissioned for Desert X 2023. ![]() Between 20, rents across the valley rose between 45 percent and 55 percent, and on February 1, a month before Desert X opened, the Palm Springs Police Department launched “Operation Relentless Sun” to cut down on visible houselessness in the city. In 2019, the average income in Mecca, the unincorporated city along the Salton Sea (a saline body of water an hour north of Mexico’s border), was $23,725, while the average income in Indian Wells, a city adjacent to Palm Springs, was $138, 653. Extreme income disparities characterize the valley. This question resonates internationally, but feels especially urgent in the Coachella Valley, the stretch of Mojave Desert that has been home to the Desert X biennial since it launched in 2017. “How can we use our imaginations and the materials that are around us to build in the face of a housing crisis?” “Rather than present this object here that wouldn’t do anything for anyone, we wanted to present her imagination and kind of spark people’s imaginations,” explained Diana Campbell, who curated Desert X 2023 alongside artistic director Neville Wakefield, at a press conference earlier this month. Of the 12 artists included in this year’s iteration of the Desert X biennial, Tabassum is the only one who will not have an artwork on the ground, though she will travel out later this spring to give workshops. Desert X Names Artists Commissioned for 2023 Edition, Including Torkwase Dyson and Tschabalala Self ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |