LOCATION: SPEAKEASY AT PIONEERTOWN MOTEL

The desert is not a neutral backdrop. It changes scale, perception, color, and time itself. For many artists, it becomes an active collaborator.

Join Gisela Colón, Ryan Schneider , Ry Rocklen, and Phillip K. Smith III for a conversation about making work in the high desert and the ways environment shapes artistic practice.

Moderated by Andrew Berardini, writer and critic and contributor to Artforum, this discussion will move between studio practice and philosophical reflection—examining light as medium, space as structure, and silence as a generative force.

Working across sculpture, installation, and painting, these artists share how living and creating in the desert continues to challenge, influence, and expand their work.

In a region long associated with experimentation and independence, the high desert remains a place where landscape and imagination meet.