Saguaro Land is a series from The Show looking at the Sonoran Desert — the lushest, hottest desert in the world that happens to be our home.
Artist Rebecca Pipkin works with invasive plants from a basin at South Mountain and transforms them into art. Pipkin boils down the plants into dye and then uses it on textiles she turns into sculpture. Sometimes she also turns the plant fibers into paper, which she also uses in her art.
Pipkin likes to refer to the plants she uses as non-native instead of invasive as what does and what doesn't qualify as an invasive species constantly changes.
The Show took a trip down to the basin with Pipkin and she estimates she has visited the space roughly 80 to 90 times within the last two years. She doesn't find herself getting bored of the scenery as the basin itself never looks the same twice.
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The Show's Amy Silverman reflects on the Saguaro Land series, and the plight of the iconic Sonoran Desert cactus that is its namesake. -
The Show is exploring the desert season by season in the series Saguaro Land — through music, art, literature, food, drink, flora and fauna — and now through design. -
Journalist Caroline Tracey has watched as Instagram and other platforms have turned a spotlight on the desert in ways she finds both refreshing — and troubling. She spoke to The Show more about the trend and what it means. -
In The Show's newest installment of Saguaro Land, we learned about using the desert to make music from Kyle Bert, who has been turning agave stalk into didgeridoos for 25 years. -
Tempe artist Safwat Saleem used baking as a metaphor for describing how he and his young daughter are learning to thrive in the Sonoran Desert.
