Sarbalé ke by Diébédo Francis Kéré
Francis Kéré has crafted 12 colorful towers that reference the baobab trees that grow in the region of Burkina Faso where Kéré is from. Rising up to 60 feet in height, the colorful, conical shapes are filled with light displays and provide a place of shade and hub for festival goers.
Francis Kéré has crafted 12 colorful towers that reference the baobab trees that grow in the region of Burkina Faso where Kéré is from. Rising up to 60 feet in height, the colorful, conical shapes are filled with light displays and provide a place of shade and hub for festival goers.
"In my culture, the baobab is the most important tree. It’s giant, and it has multiple uses as food and medicine. It's the place where you get together, celebrate, and discuss. It also attracts animals. It is spiritual. Naturally you will walk toward it, " said Kéré in a project description.
The structures in Sarbalé ke, “the house of celebration” in Kéré’s native tongue, command the same power. Some soar higher than sixty feet tall and, with their joyful colors and deep shadows that provide valuable shaded spaces, exude the same welcoming appeal. The light is another important component. “In my culture where there is no light, no electricity, if we see a light we watch it for a while,” he says. “If it stays [illuminated] we walk toward it, and there will be a celebration.”
Colossal Cacti by Office Kovacs
Office Kovacs is led by Andrew Kovacs, who teaches in the UCLA Architecture and Urban Design Department.
Los Angeles-based creative studio Office Kovacs’ Colossal Cacti consists of seven brightly colored cactuses, the four largest of which range in height between thirty-six and fifty-two feet, while the smaller three stand less than twenty-four feet tall.
The grouping sprawls like a skyline, casting long shadows and creating a fun, attractive, and shaded gathering space. The platform on which the cactuses stand each have large steps lined with paint that reference Frank Stella’s “Multicolored Squares.” Instead of spines, or spikes, the “plants” in Colossal Cacti have road reflectors that illuminate the sculptures at nighttime and signal Kovacs’ preference for using found and ready-made materials to build architectural forms. By using the recognizable form of the cactus, he offers a bridge from the architecture community to the broader public.
Spectra by New Substance
NEWSUBSTANCE are creative disruptors who have been realizing brave and ambitious projects around the world for more than 15 years.
The wondrous seven-story spectrum of color that went viral at Coachella 2018 returns, embodying the iconic sunrise and sunset of the festival. The immersive installation allows concertgoers to ascend its inner spiral to a 360-degree observation deck offering breathtaking views of the awe-inspiring desert. Inside, light, color, and perspective change with every step you take. “It takes down the sound of the festival a few notches and provides a space for reflection,” says creative director Patrick O’Mahony. From its burning reds of the morning sunrise to the gentle sunset bathed in purples and blues, Spectra propels visitors into a technicolor haven. When darkness falls, the artwork becomes a beacon of light, visible from miles around.
MISMO by Sofia Enriquez
Sofia Enriquez’s paintings and murals, with her signature, Modigliani-esque female faces floating in colorful fields with paisleys and text, assert a subtle message that promotes feminism and racial equality.
The locally-based painter goes three-dimensional with a garden of six massive paisleys — one of the motifs in the graphic vocabulary she uses on her canvases and murals, as well as her line of upcycled clothing that she sells under the label Mucho. “Everybody wears paisleys: guys, girls, young people and old people, and people of different cultures,” Enriquez says. “It can be found on a cotton bandana worn by someone doing manual labor to someone wearing a business suit with a silk tie. It’s a symbol that makes the equality in people stand out,” which is a theme that runs through all of the artist’s work. The paisleys, constructed with wood and ranging in height from fourteen to eighteen feet, read like double-sided paintings. She painted them in bright, bold colors to contrast the desert’s muted and pastel tones. The sculpture in the center of the garden has a platform with large steps where festivalgoers can meet and relax — and possibly see models wearing Mucho clothing.
Overview Effect by Poetic Kinetics
Founded by artist Patrick Shearn, Poetic Kinetics taps into nature, science, and discovery to create larger-than-life, interactive, and experiential kinetic sculpture.
The larger-than-life astronaut that became a Coachella festival icon in 2014 returns from a long adventure, looking beaten up and scarred and ready to share the evidence of its travels. “All over its body there is evidence, or clues, of the fantastical story of where it went,” says Patrick Shearn, founder of Poetic Kinetics. While the astronaut — about seventy feet tall standing straight up and forty-five feet tall in its usual crouched position — exudes different colors and aesthetic patterns than it did five years ago, but it functions in a similar fashion, navigating and hovering over concertgoers and projecting their faces and names on its helmet visor and space suit nametag, respectively. Animatronics allow the astronaut to articulate lifelike gestures.
H.i.P.O. by Dedo Vabo
Dedo Vabo creates in the realm of absurdity, combining visual art, technology and performance elements that “confuse, confound, and make people laugh.”
H.i.P.O. Hazardus Interstellar Perfessional Operations.
The hippos return to the Coachella festival, determined to launch a rocket, H.I.P.O. – Hazardous Interstellar Planetary Object, to conquer the galaxy. Despite having no experience in rocketry, the hippos have constructed a space-faring vehicle unlike any other. Standing seventy-five feet tall, the rocket sits atop an advanced laboratory and mission control center filled with animatronics and interactive special effects. The circular base structure, seventy-two feet in diameter, consists of six performance spaces, where a team of dedicated hippos can be seen utilizing the facility’s extensive capabilities for deep-space communications, scientific experimentation, trajectory monitoring, and calculation of launch coordinates. The hippos’ lack of intergalactic experience never dampens their determination to construct and launch a rocket and claim the dominant position in the interspecies space race.
