CULTURAL PARTNERS
Joshua Tree is home to an amazing creative community bustling with inspiring projects, events and initiatives.
Below you can find out more about some of the local cultural organizations. Take a couple of days after the festival to explore or come back another time and enjoy more of what this amazing community has to offer!
Mojave Desert Land Trust (MDLT)
Mojave Desert Land Trust protects the unique living landscapes of the Mojave Desert. MDLT has conserved more than 70,000 acres of prime desert habitat, forever weaving together National Parks, wilderness areas, and wildlife linkage corridors. The organization works closely with a broad range of desert community members and visitors, as well as with local, state, and federal agencies. MDLT offers hands-on learning and volunteer opportunities to residents and visitors of the desert. It collaborates closely with, and is supported by, a diverse range of partner organizations, agencies, neighbors, and visitors who treasure the desert’s unique qualities.
Joshua Tree National Park
Two distinct desert ecosystems, the Mojave and the Colorado, come together in Joshua Tree National Park. A fascinating variety of plants and animals make their homes in a land sculpted by strong winds and occasional torrents of rain. Dark night skies, a rich cultural history, and surreal geologic features add to the wonder of this vast wilderness in southern California. We highly recommend a visit to this amazing natural treasure while you are in town!
Joshua Tree Living Arts
Joshua Tree Living Arts is dedicated to empowering and strengthening our community through arts education programs and sustainable practices. Their vision is to provide resources and programs that create an economically-viable, sustainable, vibrant, and interconnected living arts community for all generations.
JTLA offers up a robust Kidsville schedule of programs, playshops at the Positive Vibration Station, Yoga & Healing classes, the GO DEEP immersion workshops the week of the festival, coordinating the Green Team in conjunction with the Urban Conservation Corps, and coordinating the Work Exchange Programs for the Joshua Tree Music Festival.
Joshua Tree Chamber of Commerce
The JT Chamber supports local and regional businesses, the arts and music community, non-profit organizations, as well as residents and visitors. Their mission is to support and promote our community and the Joshua Tree National Park as an international tourist attraction and natural wonder; to foster and encourage commerce and economic development while maintaining a respectful balance and enduring harmony with our natural environment; and to improve the quality of life for residents and visitors of Joshua Tree through the development and support of the cultural arts and community activities.
JT Lab
A century ago, artists played an important role in the formation of the National Park Service. Looking forward, Joshua Tree Art Innovation Laboratory aims to restore this role within the modern park service. Moving beyond making art for parks, JT Lab explores ways that the creative community can work with NPS to support our national parks. Using Joshua Tree National Park and Mojave National Preserve as testing grounds, JT Lab explores new roles that arts professionals and arts students can play in helping NPS pursue its mission of preservation and engagement. It enlists artists not solely as image-makers, but as creative thinkers, problem-solvers, and communicators who are highly skilled at tapping into contemporary culture, generating new ideas, and engaging the public in fresh and innovative ways.
Boxo Projects
BoxoPROJECTS is a multi-program arts initiative based in Joshua Tree, California, dedicated to exploring contemporary art at the new frontier. They offer facilitated artist residencies and related programming at BoxoHOUSE in Joshua Tree, as well as exhibitions, installations and performances in various locations. BoxoPROJECTS was founded by Bernard Leibov in 2009.
BoxoPROJECTS also provides the opportunity for artists to be seen and heard through exhibitions and programming. These events provide a welcoming space for dialog and creating community in the art sphere.
JTNP Council for the Arts
Joshua Tree National Park Council for the Arts (JTNP Arts) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization formed in 2013 to help foster the spirit of artistic expression inspired by the park, celebrate the park's majestic landscape and precious wildlife, preserve the park's cultural history, and support the preservation, enhancement, and sustainability of the entire California Deserts Region through arts related events and festivities. Find our more at jtnparts.org.
Harrison House
Harrison House Music, Arts & Ecology is a residency and performance program for international artists and thinkers based in the late composer Lou Harrison’s desert retreat in Joshua Tree, California. It awards great minds with the time to create and share their very best work in an historic and inspiring setting.
Tucked away in the vast desert landscape near the border of Joshua Tree National Park, the majestic composers’ cave Harrison built for himself and his friends inspires artists and audiences though this innovative program.
SB Arts Connection
Arts Connection is the arts council for San Bernadino County, designated by the San Bernadino County Board of Supervisors to serve as the State-Local Partner to the California Arts Council. The Arts Connection is dedicated to stimulating creative and economic vitality and enriching lives throughout the communities we serve by providing support, promotion, education, and advocacy for the arts. They host a directory connecting local artists, non-profits and business and facilitate the exchange of arts information throughout the community.
Mil-Tree
Mil-Tree is a non-profit that was founded as a response to the need to welcome home our war veterans and embrace them into the larger folds of society. Their mission is to bring together veterans, active-duty military, and civilians in order to help each other to address the wounds of the soul through communication and art.
Mil-Tree’s Sanctuary Project brought community together to create a beautiful Earthbag structure at the Joshua Tree Lake RV and Campground - 'Santuary' - which hosts conversational gatherings mindfulness talks during the Joshua Tree Music Festival.
Other Organizations of Interest
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LOCAL FRIENDS FOR EATS, ART, SHOPPING AND OTHER COOL THINGS TO DO WHILE YOU'RE IN JOSHUA TREE!