• KARLA DIAZ will invite visitors to join her in a celebration of often untold community stories and the meditative power of running, all in relationship to the history-filled landscape of Borrego Springs. The performance will celebrate the connections between mind and body, labor and land, and the stories that weave us together.

• PEARL C. HSIUNG’s monumental sculpture Holocene Screen, exploring our understanding of the concepts natural, cultural, and artificial, will be shown in The Mall, a primary retail center for locals and visitors alike. The sculpture, created with contributions from youth at the Borrego Springs Boys and Girls Club, was shown 5 years ago in the first, one-weekend edition of the Candlewood Festival, in the desert landscape of Galleta Meadows; years later, it will gain new resonance in the bustling commercial center of town, offering a moment of reflection on consumer culture and its relationship to the environment.

• DEBRA SCACCO’s work lives at the intersection of ecology, history, policy, materializing the tension between these forces through a sensitive use of materials, often in public contexts. Water and its stories play a central role in her work, and in Galleta Meadows, she will create a structure that synthesizes her research about water in Borrego Springs into an abstract form, allowing viewers to reorient their relationship to elemental forces surrounded by the desert itself.

• For the 3rd year in a row, JAKE FREILICH mentored students from Borrego Springs High School and Middle School, helping them explore new directions in painting and guiding them to assemble a thematic exhibition of their work, entitled We You Me, as part of the Candlewood Arts Festival. Freilich developed partnerships with welding teacher Michael Kitten and his students, as well other BSHS faculty and students, whose work will be included in the exhibition. The exhibition will also include works by many artists who created work in past editions of the Festival, including Tanya Aguiñiga, Sherin Guirguis, Star Montana, noé olivas, Fay Ray , Devon Tsuno, and Allison Wiese, among others.

The Festival will also include a public painting workshop with artist Pearl C. Hsiung; a talk featuring the artists in conversation with each other about their work and their experiences working in Borrego Springs; and a public reception for the artist. The artwork will be on view until April 14, 2024. The full schedule, which will be updated with details as they develop, is available on the website at http://www.candlewoodartsfestival.org.

“The artists have produced incredibly thoughtful work for this year’s festival, responding to not only the extraordinary landscape of the Anza Borrego Desert but also the people that make this place so special,” said Curator and Artistic Director Kris Kuramitsu. “As we enter our fifth year of working with the community of Borrego Springs on this Festival, we are excited to cultivate ongoing relationships between the artists and residents of this community through work that speaks equally to visitors and the people who call this place home.”