High Desert Test Sites

Come out to the #HDTSHQ this morning to participate in @pzberczynski’s participatory community quilt project Only takes a few minutes, or you can stay and hang out with us longer! We’ll be here until 12.

The #HDTSHQ is open today from 9-12! Come find us next to the #CrystalCave at the @skyvillagemarketplace_ in Yucca Valley. Elena is here mending her sweaters, if you have a tiny moth hole you need mended come on down and she’ll fix it!

The #HDTSHQ is open this morning! Come say hello to our volunteer Elizabeth. Do you have a friend or neighbor who runs a vacation rental, or are you a visitor to Joshua Tree yourself? Stop by and take a copy of these handy respectful visitor guide cards. And ask us to show you a copy of Reading the Landscape, @mojavedesertlandtrust and @joshua_treenial’s guide for artists on appreciating and responsibly interacting with our deserts. As our community grows and changes, how to be thoughtful and respectful visitors to this land (which includes us locals) is an ongoing conversation that we aim to continuously engage in with friends and community here in the high desert.

We’re wiping frost off our counter, but it’s a sunny morning and the #HDTSHQ is open from 9am-12pm! Come say hi

Hi friends! It snowed this week, which reminded us of the beautiful cover image of Joshua Tree in the snow from @annelieskuiper and @kjtelakin’s new podcast, Mojave Memories. In each episode, Annelies reads chapters for her HDTS Scout Book, Memory Dam, which we published in 2019. It’s like an audiobook read by the author! Hear her stories of life living in the high desert and growing up in Kenya. Available wherever you listen to podcasts. #desertfriends #scoutbook #annelieskuiper #memorydam

Hey locals! Please consider supporting our friend @ancientpocket’s fundraising efforts by scheduling a visit to their Green Tara Faery Temple in Joshua Tree this Tuesday, February 2, featuring performances and offerings by local artists and herbalists Email [email protected] to schedule a visit. #localfriends #localhappenings #ancientpocket #greentea

Thank you @strangebrainz and @animalmedicinecards for hanging out with us at the #HDTSHQ today!

Happy Halloween!! The #HDTSHQ will be open tomorrow, October 31st from 9am-12pm, with some special drop-in interactive projects! Sunny will be offering free readings from their beautiful hand painted @animalmedicinecards project. Come pick a card from the deck of animals and hear Sunny interpret some wisdom from the animal who choses to speak to you. We will be trying out a safe physically distanced method of readings Animal Medicine Card decks will also be ava...ilable for purchase. Don't forget to dress up as your favorite animal! Jaime from @lair.projects will also be in the space leading guided drawing meditations. Jaime will guide passersby into their drawing practice that integrates somatics and buddhist practice, encouraging a curiosity into the present moment through drawing organic lines linking back to the fetal state. Drop in for a 20 minute session for a $10 suggested donation As a reminder, please wear a mask and maintain 6 feet of distance between our HQ volunteers, guest artists, and other visitors. See you tomorrow! See more

Hi everyone Please check out @d.c.u and consider donating to their current fundraiser, which will provide mutual aid and resource distribution to families at Oasis Mobile Home Park in the Coachella Valley. @d.c.u is a small collective of High Desert folks organizing to provide mutual aid to residents in the Morongo Basin and Coachella Valley. They are putting together kits of necessities such as food, water, and PPE and redistributing them to folks who have less access to these basic resources. Follow the link in their bio to donate. If you are interested in volunteering with @d.c.u in the future, email us at [email protected], as we will be helping them recruit and coordinate volunteers for future resource distribution projects.

Back in 2018, our friends at @theskiclubmilwaukee brought together a group of Midwest-based artists to put on a weekend-long exhibition in this high desert. @lauralost set up these giant mirrored bird brooches on our Ironage Road site. Two years later (sorry Laura!) they are on display at the #HDTSHQ and available for purchase, so come on by and make an offer. #skiclub #lauradavis #desertsky #lawnart

The #HDTSHQ at the Sky Village Swap Meet is reopening tomorrow from 9-12! We hope to see you there, from a distance. One person at a time will be allowed in our indoor space. Please note that the swap meet is strictly enforcing a mask policy for all visitors, please be respectful of this beloved family-run local business and our community by wearing a mask and maintaining physical distance. We hope that all visitors to our desert towns, residents and visitors alike, will continue to keep the safety of the community in mind. We are all visitors If all goes well, we will continue to be open on Saturday mornings. Our small team of HQ sitters are hard at work on upcoming pop up programming, as well as other updates to the HQ! As always, come get your local info, HDTS publications and postcards, and gems and minerals.

@wyldwomxn is offering $200 micro-grants to BIPOC womxn and non-binary artists/activists/cultural workers residing in the Coachella Valley and High Desert regions that have been deeply affected by COVID-19. Apply at [email protected] with your name and contact info. And check out the other programming they are offering! You can also donate to their mutual aid fund at www.gofundme.com/f/wyld-womxn-covid19-mutual-aid-fund

Protest signs made by members of our high desert community As an organization that has been organically developed by many individuals over nearly two decades, High Desert Test Sites has always spoken as a plural we. Our aim has been to encompass the many voices that exist here in our high desert region and those that make up our extended art community. But behind the greater mission, we are three individuals who like many have spent this moment reflecting on our experie...nces, values, and sometimes silence. And like many, we’ve decided that the ethos of this organization must reflect us as people. For the past few years HDTS projects and programming has been the work of Elena Yu, Vanesa Zendejas, and Andrea Zittel. As artists we’ve embraced not only HDTS, but the desert, as our home for many reasonsthe vastness of space and time, the unique mix of ideologies, the determined self-sufficiency, and the spirit of individuality. Ideally we imagine these aspects of the desert transcending race, gender, and politics, but our own individual experiences of marginalization, whether that is as women, POC, or LGBTQ, tell otherwise. What has been obvious to us as individuals is something we need to acknowledge now as an organizationthat both contemporary art and our local community are disproportionately white and lack sufficient representation of BIPOC because of longstanding institutional inequalities. In solidarity with widespread protest of racial oppression, especially that of the Black community, we feel it is important to both recognize ways systemic racism impacts the arts and our community, and reevaluate how our programming can better combat these inherited biases. (Continued in comments) See more

Jeff Reed and Jedediah Caesar's "Tiger Pit" was the after party to the after party of HDTS 2, and an epic and kind of legendary instance of #peoplehangingout at HDTS. "We rented a back ho and dug a pit and put stones around it. We made a sign in LA and drove it out to the desert in a Galpin truck. It was hot as shit. We made a big fake boulder too, with mirrors on it. It reflected the sun so you could see where the Tiger Pit was from the highway. Everybody cool came. We... gave away the beer free, Jed and Jeff bartended. Someone brought light up ice cubes. Someone brought their own supplies to make Pimms Cups. People did what they wanted. The party ended when the generators went off and the lights went out. It was completely dark. We thought the generators ran out of gas but later found out that Mungo and Jeff turned them off because they were mad about something. So they fucked up the party." #hdtsarchive #tigerpit #holeinthedesert #desertparty #jeffreed #jedediahcaesar #hdts2 See more

While many of us are experiencing our own tight personal bubbles these days, alone or with just a few other people, we thought of this piece by Kathy Chenoweth from HDTS 2 (2003). Alas, this piece is clearly of another time...but we like the way it prompted participants to think about and experience personal space and the landscape in new ways. Kahty Chenoweth’s "Personal Space Wear (PSW)" are stretchy colorful fabric forms that are worn by one or more viewers. ...Once referred to as "shared domicilic underwear," they behave a little like architecture, and a little like clothing. The forms are a people-powered vehicle for viewers to be participants and become the art. From inside, PSW offers a colorful bubble of private space, with peepholes for surveying the land and onlookers. From outside, the forms display a dancing bauble with multiple legs. At night they become jewels in the darkness lit by the party inside. #hdtsarchive #peoplehangingout #personalspacewear #personalbubble #kathychenoweth #hdts2 See more

Donnie and Travis during HDTS 5 Anyone know where this was taken? For HDTS 5, Don Felix Cervantes and Travis Boyer created and installed their off-loom weaving project, "smile now, cry later." A soft sculpture, this off-loom weaving was constructed from strips of hand-printed silk fabric knotted together to form a hanging lattice. Any number of additional fabric strips were tied and woven into the lattice. The project was installed on the back patio at the Palms, and passersby were invited to add onto the piece as it was created. #peoplehangingout #hdtsarchive #hdts5 #weavingoffloom #thepalms

MARGARITA OASISMERCEDES MIRAGE Miguel Nelson HDTS 5 (2006) Why not have a drink outside? Margaritas served out of the trunk of a Mercedes...even better! We very much look forward to the day we can share a drink in the desert with y'all again ... #quarantineideas #margaritas #peoplehangingout #hdtsarchive #hdts5 #miguelnelson See more

For HDTS 4 in 2004, Christy Gast and Fabienne Lasserre collaborated on Free Radio HDTS, a low power FM radio station. They compiled over ten hours of audio art, music, and archival material, inspired by high desert geography, which was broadcast during the three-day event. Many listeners tuned in as they drove between the sites; others listened as they hiked, letting the station’s audio offerings influence their perception of the natural and cultural landscape. The #HDTSHQ wa...s tuned in, so Free Radio HDTS was a constant companion to visitors and artists, while also available to truck drivers, outlaws, vacationing families, and other passersby in range. The transmitter was assembled on-site, using commercially available components, and broadcast from a tower built by Justin Beal. Its signal reached about seven miles into the valley below. #peoplehangingout #hdtsarchive #freeradiohdts #christygast #fabiennelasserre #justinbeal #fmradio #desertradio #ruralradio See more

Have you visited the Krblin Jihn Cabin, the first official Kymaerica historical site? In 2013, Kcymaerxthaere Geographer-at-large Eames Demetrios conducted a story session with visitors to the cabin. While it isn't safe to travel right now, our friends at @kcymaerxthaere has devised a way to bring Kcymaerxthaere stories to you so we can continue to travel the world in our imaginations. Check out their IGTV series @kcymaerxthaere to hear stories from the parallel world. Acc...ording to the Geographers of KcyCentral, Krblin Jihn Cabin was originally used to house defeated heretics. Jihn Wranglicans (a sect of Church of the California Christ) had their lives spared, but only on condition of a form of sectarian house arrest, where they could never leave their cabin and surrounding grounds. In his isolation, Krblin (an honorific similar to Brother) Jihn himself became an important Biblical translator and commentator. More background and lore about Kymaerica are found at kcymaerxthaere.com/ The Krblin Jihn Cabin was an official site of HDTS 5 in 2006, and it remains on our current driving map. #peoplehangingout #hdtsarchive #kcymaerxthaere #krblinjihncabin #eamesdemetrios #homesteadcabin #hdts5 #hdts2013 See more

We love these photos of HDTS friends hanging out at Tao Urban's "Tap Water Pavilion." This piece was installed in 2003 at Andy's Gamma Gulch site for HDTS 2. The artist's initial question was, what do people need to make the desert more hospitable to relax in and enjoy?. The simple answer was seating, shade and water. "To further this mode of simplification and essentialism I decided to get the water from the sources of the waters that feed Southern California. I ended up t...raveling and gathering water from the headwaters of the Owens, Sacramento and Colorado rivers and offering it to drink in the three bottles integrated into the kiosk." "Tap Water Pavilion" still stands on its site in Pioneertown, and although you can no longer dispense yourself a drink, there is still plenty of water in each of the three glass bottles, and the benches offer shade and a place to rest. #peoplehangingout #hdtsarchive #tapwaterpavilion #taourban #owensriver #coloradoriver #sacramentoriver #freshwaterdrinkingwater #waterinthedesert #pavilion @ Pioneertown, California See more