Reading the Changing Deserts of the American West: Perception and Reality

Abstract

The vast, arid deserts of the American West traverse large-scale geographical landscapes. Inhabitants write and re-write the ever-changing narratives of the West. Ways of living, recreating, diverting water, and developing land have impacted the way these deserts thrive, the way we connect with them, and the way we threaten them. These western deserts are paradoxical on many levels: public open spaces that invite private interior experiences, empty yet teeming with life, arid or flooded, freezing cold or burning hot, human and geological, imagined and literal, windy and silent, wild yet tamed, fenced-in yet boundless, iconic yet unknown, natural yet monumental, remote yet sometimes politically charged. My interdisciplinary study explores the desert’s changing, paradoxical narratives in text and image. My drawings and photographs offer a visual representation of the qualities and challenges of the desert landscape and the everyday life of its inhabitants, discussed in three sections: scientific context, the imaginary, and sensory perception.

Scientific context. This section explores the larger context—using scientific and other lenses, as well as my own background. I lean on François Duban’s description of how different professional lenses—from the geographer’s to that of the ecologist—establish different definitions of ecosystems, depending on how interactions between humans and landscapes are viewed.

The imaginary. Second, I delve deeper into the imaginary (including collective memory, controversy, and culture). I turn the lens on the scale and aridity of the desert as a source of inspiration. This article explores the colors and textures of the ever-changing desert and considers the imaginary in diverse desert narratives, at both the individual and the collective levels. Drawing helps explore these human interactions and distill collective memories.

Sensory perception. Finally, I explore the experience of the desert through drawing, including phenomenological experience and sensory perception. My sensory perception internalizes all these conditions. The visual aspect of this project explores the perceptual qualities of the desert under different conditions (silence, wind, hot, cold, etc.). I conclude that drawing or viewing drawings of the desert in this context helps all of us establish the link between perception and reality, and allows us to experience the evolving desert environment.