Music dominates the headlines every year at the Coachella Music and Arts Festival, but how many festivalgoers acknowledge that the real stars every year are the immersive art installations dispersed throughout the polo grounds? Throughout the festival, the art installations have continued to grow in scale, complexity and outrageousness. The 2022 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival returns this year with eleven new installations by international artists and designers. Themes and ideas surrounding connectedness and our environment take on sensory and fantastical proportions through shared explorations of these fantastical exhibits.

The art installations serve both as vital, navigational markers on the field and as gathering points, havens for shelter and spaces for reflection and contemplation. Paul Clemente, Coachella’s art director since 2009, said, “We’re obviously constantly trying to, for lack of a better word, outdo ourselves and make it better for the fans.” This year’s festival will feature large-scale installations by 11 international designers from 7  countries, including New York-based Romanian designer Oana Stănescu, whose architectural wonderlands incorporate their natural surroundings through a colorful and imaginative lens. She is joined by internationally recognized Dutch designer Kiki Van Eijk, whose surrealist and colorful approach to her work is inspired by the smallest details of the everyday and comprises multidisciplinary mediums such as textiles, wood, metal and canvas.

Also included are architecture and design firms Estudio Normal from Buenos Aires, Argentina, founded by architect Martín Huberman, New York and Rome-based Architensions, led by Alessandro Orsini and Nick Roseboro (who played trumpet with LCD Soundsystem at Coachella in 2016), which produces experiential scenarios in dialogue with urban surroundings, and works at the intersection of theory, practice and academia, focusing on social behaviors and architecture.

Presented for the first time is Coachella Valley artist Cristopher Cichocki. Originally from Indio, CA, Cichocki is an experimental artist whose work examines the intersection of humankind, industrial production and the natural world through an ongoing exploration of water and the history of the desert. LosDos, the husband and wife duo of Frontera graphic artists Ramon and Christian Cardenas based in El Paso, Texas, will also be presented for the first time. Together Ramon and Christian create public art installations and gallery work to form a dialogue between the city and its people.

Complex, dynamic and ambitious in scale and design, the site-responsive installations explore a range of pressing topics and global themes surrounding environmental sustainability – from use to re-use, up-cycling to re-cycling, multi-cultural dialogue, community and exchange, social behavior and architecture, performance and pop culture. The installations span imaginary transformations and reinventions of everyday objects and experiences as fantastical, playful forms and spaces; progressive approaches to structure and material; subtle interplays of light, color and sound, and responses to the geography and topography of the desert landscape, its flora and fauna, temporal shifts from day to night and spectacular sunrises and sunsets.

“Building on our art program with designers, architects, and visual artists from around the world and from the Coachella Valley allows festival-goers to explore shared global interests and perspectives through the experience of ambitious and one-of-a-kind, large-scale installations,” commented Paul Clemente. He manages the art program for the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. “In the same way music is a universal language, the experience of these new spaces invites connectedness and adds an iconic sense of place in the spirit of the Festival. After two years of planning, it is very exciting to finally see the works come to fruition and make their way onto the field. The artists and designers are all active and respected voices in their communities, and they’re central to today’s cultural conversations. The works have rigor, challenging urgent issues and ideas while balancing the requirements of scale and function with the use of new technologies, playfulness and wonder. I hope they will surprise, inspire and inform, creating personal memories and serving as lasting beacons for the Festival.”

Returning to Coachella for the third year is UK art and design studio NEWSUBSTANCE, which creates performative, site-specific and temporal works around the world. Their Coachella installation Spectra won The Architect’s Newspaper 2018 Best of Design Award in the Lighting-Outdoor category and a 2018 Gold prize from the International Design Awards.

Also featured in this year’s program are returning favorites Do LaB. This Los Angeles-based creative team reimagines venues into fantastical and interactive experiences inspired by human connection, authenticity, and environmental sustainability. New York artist Robert Bose, the mastermind behind the quarter-mile-long kinetic Balloon Chain. Don Kennell, the Santa Fe, New Mexico-based artist whose monumental animal sculptures connect audiences through the exploration of nature and community, and after-school artists Raices Cultura from the City of Coachella.

The 2022 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival will return for the weekends of April 15-17 and April 22-24. For more information, see their website at Coachella.com

Gallery • 6 Photos

Photo courtesy of Goldenvoice. Nightfall at Coachellafest Music and Arts Festival 2019.