If you want to propagate a Joshua tree, you’ll need a Yucca moth. The dark grey insect, less than a centimetre in length, is the only thing on Earth that can do the job properly. Sadly, in the Mojave Desert, to which the trees are native, there are myriad problems making the moth’s job much harder. These include the spread of invasive grasses, suburban sprawl, polluting winds, decreased rainfall and fire to name just a few. Whilst Joshua trees are long-living – surviving for around 150 years on average – a 2013 study found they were not reproducing within over 50% of their namesake National Park.
Joshua trees can breed asexually, but this produces less genetically diverse “clonal” stems and has a knock-on effect for the species’ long-term biodiversity and resilience. In August 2020, a lightning strike ignited a fire that destroyed more than 1.3 million trees. In 2023, the US Fish and Wildlife Service denied them federal protection under the Endangered Species Act, despite scientists predicting that, by 2100, there may no longer be Joshua trees in Joshua Tree National Park.
Multimedia artist and writer Ruth Wallen (b. 1953) first saw a Joshua tree when she was a teenager. “They were one of the nice things about being in southern California,” she recalls. Yucca brevifolia is one of the most recognisable symbols of the Mojave Desert, with its knobbly branches and spiky leaves setting it apart from everything else on the horizon. Its home is a vast area of southern California, characterised by stark terrain and rock formations, which has had a significant impact on pop culture. In the 1960s and 1970s, the National Monument – as it was then known – was a symbol of counterculture; it had an allure that appealed to musicians and writers. Members of The Rolling Stones, The Byrds and The Mamas & The Papas visited as a retreat. By the 1990s, it was associated with freedom and individuality; U2 named their fifth studio album after the tree and sold 25 million copies.
The region continues to build on this reputation, hosting an array of contemporary art projects each year. Most famous is Desert X, which unfolds in nearby Coachella Valley and is replete with large-scale, “Instagram-friendly” artworks, as well as the aptly-named Joshua Treenial, which launched in 2015. You’ll find quirky murals, galleries and installations scattered throughout nearby towns. Wallen’s interest in the landscape, however, came more from a place of care, concern and a desire to raise awareness. “One of the reasons I started working in Joshua Tree National Park was that it was losing its namesake, and no one was paying attention … it was about saying ‘even here, in the most iconic place, we have a problem.’” After working as an environmental scientist, Wallen turned to art as a means of breaking down barriers between disciplines. She wanted to spread the word further.
“Walking With Trees started in San Diego in the aftermath of the conflagrations of 2003 and 2007, the largest fires in California at the time, which killed well over 50% of the conifers in the county. I began to take the same walk repeatedly, coming back several times and seeing how things are changing. I developed a real intimacy with these trees.” The resulting photomontages are a love letter to these places – multiple images, taken in the same location, pasted into an assemblage. They are testament to the power of close looking and slowing down, showing us how to build lasting interspecies relationships. “One of the subjects of this process is the sequoias … I first met those sequoias two years before they all were incinerated. There are groves that I visited 2019 that burnt in 2020. The same year, I went to other groves. Those burnt in 2021. It’s terrifying and heartbreaking, especially when you’ve seen them when they were all alive.” Additionally, Wallen is joined on her frequent trail walks by different companions, ranging from endangered Torrey pines and coastal live oaks, to pinyon-junipers and towering redwoods.
The challenge for Wallen was working out how to best communicate such a vast and emotive subject. There were numerous art world blueprints to draw from – Ansel Adams, Edward Burtynsky, Richard Mosse – but none of them felt right. “A lot of traditional landscape photography is based on the sublime aesthetic. Philosophers, like Immanuel Kant and Edmund Burke wrote about witnessing pain and danger without actually being in such circumstances. For example, you might be standing on the shore and looking at a huge fire, but you’re doing it from a place of safety. To me, that sense of titillation is horrifying. We’re going to be excited by looking at a sequoia forest that’s gone up in flames? I was searching for was an aesthetic that gave a sense of intimacy, as opposed to the distancing that comes with the sublime.”
Wallen found the answer in Cubism, the early 20th century art movement pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque that brought different views of subjects together in the same frame – conflating time and space in a collage of shapes. “Walking With Trees likewise provides a series of glimpses; you get close, and then you look at something else, and then you try to look up. There are different perspectives coming together and a sense of movement – refusing that whole vast view.” In doing so, Wallen joins a number of women artists who have been working to push past the detached, often aerial, perspectives of their male counterparts.
Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta (1948-1985) is remembered as one of the best-known proponents of eco-feminism, immersing herself in flowers and mud for her “earth-body” performances. Then there’s Judy Chicago (b. 1939), whose pyrotechnic Atmospheres (1968-1974) intended to transform and soften the landscape, introducing a so-called “feminine impulse” to the environment. More recently, salt extraction sites, marble quarries, dry lake beds and burning gas wells have become backdrops for contemporary artist Liz Miller Kovacs, an avid traveller who makes self-portraits within what she calls “scars of the Earth.” At a time when Google searches for “famous landscape photographers” still yield a list of predominantly male artists, women are redressing the balance, by getting close-up to their subject matter.
Wallen’s photomontages are included in Desert Forest: Life with Joshua Trees, an exhibition presented at the Museum of Art and History in Lancaster, California, as part of the Getty PST ART: Art & Science Collide initiative. The show and accompanying book, curated by Wallen’s colleague and fellow visual artist Sant Khalsa, considers the plight of not only the tree, but the sensitive Mojave Desert ecosystem that supports it. “It’s not about the iconic Joshua tree image we see in the media all the time. We’re using the tree as way to tell a much larger story about manifest destiny and colonisation.”
The show integrates natural history, Indigenous knowledge, public policy, scientific research and artistic expressions to emphasise the challenges faced as well as ongoing conservation efforts. There are more than 40 artists included, across all media. Audiences can discover the first known photograph of a Joshua tree, taken by Carleton Watkins, as well as recent work by Cara Romero, a citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe who grew up between the rural Mojave Desert and the urban sprawl of Houston. She examines cultural memory, collective history and lived experiences from a Native American perspective – which Khalsa sees as essential. “It was very important to us to bring in Indigenous viewpoints. Before we had science as we know it, we had Indigenous knowledge. We are part of the natural world. We are not separate from it. Indigenous people have lived in this way for a very long time.”
Getty PST ART: Art & Science Collide is the largest art event in the USA, presenting more than 70 exhibitions and 800 artists over five months. Desert Forest joins a roster of eco-focused shows like Hammer Museum’s Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice, which similarly foregrounds artists, scientists and activists who are focused on the lungs of our planet – oceans, atmosphere and forests. It’s all about the tangible contributions being made towards their protection. Meanwhile, at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, audiences are encouraged to consider different ways of knowing. Mapping the Infinite: Cosmologies Across Cultures is an exploration of astrology and astronomy across time through a selection of around 100 sculptures, manuscripts, photographs and astronomical instruments. There are also exhibits on biotechnology, agriculture and artificial intelligence, welcoming renowned figures like Olafur Eliasson and Tavares Strachan.
PST ART joins a growing number of collaborative projects worldwide that are bridging the gap between the humanities and natural sciences. Earlier in 2024, London’s Science Museum unveiled Only Breath, a site-specific kinetic sculpture by Torus Torus Studio, the brainchild of Aesthetica Art Prize alumnus Alexandra Carr. The piece evokes processes of breathing and blooming, constructed using repurposed and recycled materials – including trees felled by storm Arwen – that feel right at home in the museum’s Energy Revolution Gallery. In the USA, meanwhile, academic institutions like Caltech and Carnegie Mellon University have introduced interdisciplinary courses to their programmes. Khalsa explains: “Art has always been linked to science. Going back to where our pigments come from, or even to the 1800s and the invention of photography, it’s all based in chemistry and physics.” Why are we seeing an uptick in interest right now? “Scientists understand that they need someone to better communicate what is that they’re doing, and artists are looking for more ways to talk about what is happening in the world right now.”
Despite the positive contributions that are being made, it’s easy to feel discouraged when faced with devastating headlines of climate crisis, raging fires and an ever-growing list of endangered and protected species. But it’s important not to switch off or become fatigued with it all. Wallen is optimistic about what can be achieved if people engage with the science, work together and stay tuned in to what’s happening around them. For her, listening and compassionate attentiveness are crucial. “If you look closely at some of my images of sequoias you’ll see brilliant purple lupine flowers. They’re a nitrogen fixer. They come up after fire to heal the land. There are tiny sequoias everywhere, too – adapted to regenerate after fire. It’s important to communicate that, if we can learn to be present, there is possibility.” Khalsa agrees, reiterating that the show isn’t rooted in feelings of negativity or defeatism. “This project is really about hope. Things can change.”
PST ART: Art & Science Collide | Various locations, California | 15 September – 16 February
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Words: Eleanor Sutherland
Image credits:
1. Ruth Wallen, Walking with Joshua Trees, (2019). Image courtesy the artist.
2. Ruth Wallen, Walking with Joshua Trees: Burnt Hill Trail, (2023). Image courtesy the artist.
3. Ruth Wallen, Walking with Joshua Trees: Eureka Peak Trail, (2021). Image courtesy the artist.
4. Ruth Wallen, Walking with Joshua Trees: Dead Pinyon pines on Joshua Trees, Burnt Hill Trail, (2023). Image courtesy the artist.
5. Ruth Wallen,Walking with Joshua Trees: Minerva Hoyt Trail, (2023). Image courtesy the artist.
