Corrected: Saturday, March 11, 2023, at 9:40 a.m., ET: A previous version of this article erroneously indicated that Desert X is produced by the Coachella music festival. Desert X is produced by The Desert Biennial, a California-based not-for-profit 501(c)(3) charitable organization “conceived to produce recurring international contemporary art exhibitions that activate desert locations through site-specific installations by acclaimed international artists,” according to its website. The article has been amended to reflect this correction.
It’s officially festival season, and as Indio, Calif., prepares to host its 24th annual Coachella festival, the desert valley surrounding it has once again been transformed into an unforgettable landscape by the arts organization Desert X. Featuring the works of 12 international artists this year, among the stunning installations is a series of billboards featuring the photography of Tyre Nichols. Before his untimely death at the hands of Memphis police officers, Nichols was a loving father and creative, passionate about photography.
“It expresses me in ways I cannot write down for people,” Nichols wrote of his photography. “My vision is to bring my viewers deep into what I am seeing through my eye and out through my lens. People have a story to tell; why not capture it instead of doing the ‘norm’ and writing it down or speaking it.”
The installation brings Nichols’ art back to California, where he lived before moving to Tennessee. After moving from the West Coast to the East Coast in 2020, Nichols used photography as an outlet and motivator to explore his new city. Unfortunately, on his way home from capturing images of the Memphis sky on January 7, 2023, the aspiring photographer was pulled over and brutally attacked by city police officers. His passing three days later struck Black communities across the nation. Now, Nichols’ creative…
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