nightvisions is a conscious recognition and emergent, collective, and creative response to living in an era of social, ecological, and political collapse – a time of much darkness.
Within this context, we wonder: what might the Sonoran Desert share with us about the night? What new senses, wisdom, or tools do we need to way-find? How do we navigate the unknown together when we cannot see the other side?
nightvisions will offer four experimental land-based gatherings for the collective in 2026/2027 that aim to nurture and deepen relationships with the Sonoran Desert at night. Through practicing collective attentiveness to the darkness – patiently listening, creating, dreaming, and honoring – we seek alternative futures of deep care and connection.
If we listen closely and ask generously, we believe the night has much to share.
We are artist-scientist-writer-academic-facilitators with extensive experience guiding groups through the social-environmental complexities of this moment. From environmental grief workshops to queer/trans ecological graduate-level seminars to land-based gatherings and collaborative artistic projects, we share a commitment to the “understoried” layers of landscape. We deeply believe in the emergent alchemy of collaborative group processes.
Anushka Peres, Ph.D., is a public scholar, photographer, and facilitator. They work across ecologies and media with a range of collaborators on projects that intentionally invite and examine depth, nuance, and complexity in human relationships with land within and against colonial systems. Their written and photographic work has been published in Rhetoric Review, The Routledge Handbook of Queer Rhetorics, TSQ: Trans Studies Quarterly, and Feral Feminisms. Their photographs have been shown in galleries globally.
Maria Renée, M.S., grew up in the Sonoran Desert where she has lived most of her life. She is an artist, naturalist, facilitator, and community grief-tender with a background in environmental conservation, education, and social sciences. She considers the natural world her teacher and practices deep listening, dreaming, and attentive observation. Her work has brought her from many years spent in México’s Gulf of California, to rural coastal Oregon, and back home to the Santa Cruz River. In all she does, the common threads are (re)connection, relationship, reconciliation, and ecological belonging.
Comet Sinclair, M.F.A., is a trans-disciplinary creative and rites of passage guide whose magic roots deep within the soil of her Celtic ancestry. Animated by material alchemy, deep listening, and synesthesia, Comet’s artwork incorporates site-specific materials such as charcoal, mud, trash, and volcanic stone, and emerges from extensive fieldwork with place. Comet co-weaves land-based gatherings in the Sierra Nevada mountains, the San Francisco Bay Area, and the Sonoran Desert. She loves collaborating with underworld landscapes — and with friends.