Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art

The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art will present Desert Perspectives, a year-long, collection-centered exhibition and public learning initiative grounded in the art, ecology, and cultural identity of the desert Southwest. The museum will pilot a new exhibition format and deliver three sequential exhibition rotations examining the desert as idealized landscape, ecological system, and site of lived identity. The museum will also conduct in-depth curatorial research into a minimum of 60 to 70 collection works; publish the museum’s first collections catalog; expand public-facing collection records through the museum’s online collections portal, embARK; deliver curriculum-aligned in-school programs to approximately 240 K-12 students in local school districts; and offer hands-on public programs, artist lectures, and sensory tours. The exhibition and its programs will benefit approximately 42,000 annual visitors, approximately 240 K-12 students and their teachers with emphasis on Title I schools, and researchers, educators, and art professionals who will access the collections catalog and expanded, publicly accessible online records.