There’s a very unique sculpture installation currently on view at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix.
"When you first come in, we’re not hitting you with a lot of signs, and explaining everything about desert place. We want you to kind of feel it. It’s a sensory experience when you’re first coming in. You’re definitely meant to spend time here, to be able to sit with it. To take your time," said Laura Spalding Best, the senior director of exhibits at Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix.
Last fall, on one of the first evenings when the temperature finally dropped below 80, I drove over to the Desert Botanical Garden, right around sunset. I met up with Spalding Best to take a tour of an art installation called "Light Bloom." She met me at the entrance to the garden, and we walked in.
"We’re standing now in Ottosen Entry Garden. This is kind of the 'great hall' of Desert Botanical Garden. So here, this whole space is designed to have this framed view to the Papago Butte, back there. To just kind of say, 'We are all about cactus! Welcome to the Sonoran Desert — you can’t mistake it for anything else,'" said Spalding Best.
We’d only been walking through the garden for a few minutes when we came to a clearing. The sun was low on the horizon, and the sky was a smear of topaz blue, pale orange, and hazy gray. I stood still for a moment, watching the colors fade.
It took me a second to realize the only reason I could still make out any daylight was because of this trio of dangling metal shapes in the distance. They were each hanging from the top of a giant hoop. And they were catching the last rays of sunset, throwing glimmers and shadows across the walkway. This, it turned out, was one of the first installations of "Light Bloom."
"This one’s called 'Inner Orbit.' So, there’s three of these hanging polygons, and these ones are all mirrored steel. So in the daytime they’re super shiny, but we actually only open this piece at night. The way that they’re arranged in the space, it’s most dramatic in the evening," said Spalding Best.
Watching the fading light reflecting off the mirrored structures, I had the odd sense that I was standing before a kind of gateway — like we were about to enter a strange new world. This, Spalding Best explained, was not an accident.
"These artists, Serge and Ylena, the first time they installed a work was for Burning Man, 10 years ago. You know, this is definitely a miniature Burning Man moment out here," said Spalding Best.
Those artists Spalding Best is talking about, Serge Beaulieu and Yelena Filipchuk, are life partners and collaborators, who work together under the name HYBYCOZO. For "Light Bloom," they partnered with Spalding Best to identify ideal spots in the Garden to place their sculptures, which are mostly made of thin metal that looks like mesh, until you get right up close to it. That’s when you notice that the sculptures are perforated with intricate tessellations and swirls. As Spalding Best and I walked past one of them, a light bulb mounted inside of it cast flickering shapes on the ground. It looked like the walkway had been replaced with floor tiles in a mosque.
"They were invited to create a piece that was inspired by sacred Islamic geometry. And you can absolutely see that influence here," she said.
By now it was dark, and after a while we came to another clearing. At the end of a short path was a rotunda, with a tall, slender sculpture at the center. It looked sort of like an un-opened crocus bulb. This one was covered in diamond-shaped perforations. It was radiating light from within all around the rotunda. The sculpture was mounted on a spinning base, and some of the other guests at the garden spun it around, which sent shadows dancing over the surface of a massive cactus.
"This is our contemplation garden — it is a contemplative space. You know, you can hear the sounds of water, here. But we’ve placed this piece in the center — this giant saguaro is right behind it. You could not mistake where you are, you’re absolutely here, at Desert Botanical Garden," Spalding Best said.
I paused again, trying to process what I was looking at. The effect of the spinning diamonds on the cactus was mesmerizing. It felt like the saguaro had been transformed from a plant into a canvas. But at the same time, the size of the cactus, looming high above the sculpture, made it so obvious that the spinning metal had been put there by people. That the sculpture, and the light, had been added to complement something much older, and grander.
Spalding Best and I kept walking, deeper into the garden, along the base of a butte lined with more cacti. We came to a cutaway in the path, where we found the next HYBYCOZO sculpture — another polygon, this one low to the ground.
"This is one of my favorite spots in the garden, because on the west side, we have the Garden’s butte, which is planted with all of our collection plants — organ pipes, saguaros, it’s really dramatic, just absolutely iconic Sonoran desert. And then looking out to the east, just all you see are city lights," said Spalding Best.
I followed Spalding Best's gaze. And it was just like she said — the entire horizon was alive with neon and fluorescent white. Planes and helicopters hovered over our heads, and power lines sliced across the landscape. I looked back at the sculpture, straddling the line between the quiet majesty of the butte and the harsh glare of the urban sprawl. The reason this is one of Spalding Best's favorite places in the Garden, she said, is because it’s what makes Phoenix special — this extreme concentration of old and new, of pristine desert and metropolitan ambition.
"I feel like what you just said made me recognize something about Phoenix that I haven’t in the months that I’ve lived here so far," I told her. "Because people from back home in New York are often saying, 'What’s the deal with Phoenix? Basically, how would you characterize it?' And I think it is what you just said — I think it is this sense that it’s a city that seems to exist as organically as possible in the balance between the natural and the man-made. Like, there’s an element to the desert that can’t be tamed. You can’t make life there. And one of the things that is interesting to me about Phoenix is that for vast stretches of the city, we haven’t tried. Like, nope, that’s just the desert and we’re not gonna put stuff there. But we have built stuff around it that mimics its color palette and harshness and austerity. And from that, the feel of a city emerges."
"Yeah. I think there can be this desire if you’re a transplant here, if you’re new to the area, to try to make this, like, the environment maybe you’re used to," Spalding Best said.
"Like, instead of thinking about how you’re not where you used to be, what if you thought about where you are?" I asked.
"Yeah. I think that’s the biggest point, is to, just like you would accept someone for just how they are if you really love them, that’s what you need to do with Phoenix. With the larger Valley. With Arizona. With this desert.," she said.
Spalding Best and I walked a little further, and we came to one last clearing. There was one final HYBYCOZO structure — this one so big you could actually climb inside it. So, naturally, we did.
"If you look through it now, you can see the night sky through these cutouts. The butte, the saguaros, the landscape, outside of it, is sort of revealed. It’s a completely different experience once you step into it," said Spalding Best.
"Light Bloom" is on view at Desert Botanical Garden through March 30.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been modified to correct the spelling of Ottosen Entry Garden.
