The biennial Desert X has returned to California’s Coachella Valley for its 2025 edition. The artists featured this year offer fresh perspectives on a world increasingly shaped by human presence. For many, this manifests as an exploration of time within spaces where ancestral wisdom converges—and sometimes clashes—with contemporary visions of our shared future. As the most tangible marker of human transformation, architecture serves as the foundation for numerous projects, ranging from pavilion-like structures to more understated forms.

José Dávila’s The act of being together features massive, monolithic marble blocks that seem to fracture time and space. Dávila transported these stone blocks from a quarry just beyond the U.S.-Mexico border to the Coachella Valley, forging a connection between the two places by emphasizing the void they left behind and their striking presence in an unfamiliar landscape. Their journey is physical and symbolic—crossing national boundaries while navigating the liminal space between the seen and the unseen.

Desert X 2025 is on display through May 11. More information can be found here: https://desertx.org/

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