Staff Reports | Happenings & Events
Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art will present “alejandro t. acierto: Model Home,” an installation-based exhibition examining development, environmental change and public awareness of the desert landscape. The exhibition opens Sept. 26.
The exhibition explores how population growth, urban expansion and development have reshaped the desert landscape in the Phoenix metropolitan area, affecting local plants, wildlife and natural resources, according to a press release.
Curated by Julie Ganas, curator of engagement and digital initiatives, and Oliver Sayers, SMoCA coordinator, “Model Home” examines issues including land use, displacement, conservation and water resources through video, audio, photography, surface scans and found objects.
“The ecological impact of urban expansion within the desert is having a deep impact on the landscape,” Mr. Sayers said. “Living in Phoenix, it’s impossible to ignore the region’s rapid growth. As development expands, it raises questions about the strain on the desert’s limited resources and how such transformation will reshape its ecosystem over time.”
Through the exhibition, artist alejandro t. acierto invites viewers to consider the value of land often perceived as vacant while examining broader questions related to displacement, settlement and growth. Arizona has experienced decades of population growth and development. Between 1950 and 1960, Phoenix’s population grew to approximately 439,000 and the city’s land area expanded from 17 to 190 square miles.
“This exhibition has become a convenient way to bring in all of these conversations around displacement, water shortages and the water crisis, the alarming amount of unhoused people that live in the Valley and its own set of concerns that unfold into other social problems,” Mr. Acierto said. “This has to do with me questioning how this might unfold and trying to ignite a conversation around what we do in this moment of precarity.”
The exhibition will feature a full-scale model home installation, a library component within the museum and a short documentary featuring footage of a Buckeye landscape undergoing transformation through new development.
“I’m always hopeful that people will bring their own life experiences to that and find things they relate to in the art,” Ms. Ganas said. “It’ll give those who visit an opportunity to meander through what could have been a model home and spatially understand their relationship to this structure.”
The exhibition centers on environmental awareness and the role of art in fostering discussion about contemporary issues.
“I mainly want audiences to feel the space,” Mr. acierto said. “I want them to feel the things that are at stake. I don’t necessarily have all the answers, but I want to open that conversation for folks to understand that these are the conditions and maybe reorient their thinking. I want you to sit with the art and figure out how to deal with it in conversation, in community with other people.”
