A Space in Between : Alejandro Bataille at Tera Haus
The home’s pared-back form and expansive glazing stage each piece with purpose, allowing plant-derived materials to converse with light, shadow, and terrain.
Tera Haus, realized by Interlude Studio, sits lightly within a private cove near the edge of Joshua Tree National Park. A restrained exterior of white stucco and ribbed timber frames an interior of concrete floors and refined joinery, opening outward to a deck and pool. Broad apertures draw the desert inward, tempering glare and amplifying tonal shifts throughout the day. The architecture is unfussy and assured, creating conditions for close looking. Within this calm, edited context, the sculptures feel anchored, legible, and composed.
Bataille’s botanical sculptures evolve from the structure of desert flora, distilled into forms that hold tension between fragility and permanence. Natural fibers, branches and mineral textures are arranged with a maker’s precision, retaining traces of origin while assuming architectural presence. Each piece reads as both artifact and living matter—rooted in place yet attuned to human intention. The installations do not imitate nature; they participate in it, deepening awareness of time, decomposition, and renewal.
The exhibition is organized across three registers, each calibrated to the architectural and topographical conditions of the site. At the entryway, a large-scale work establishes a sober welcome, its raw tactility bridging exterior climate and interior quiet. Positioned with generous clearance, it sets a cadence for viewing that favors stillness over spectacle.
Within the living spaces, smaller compositions rest on built-in planes and in sheltered corners. Here, intimacy guides the encounter: a turn of the wrist reveals a fiber edge; a shift of light reveals density within an armature. The domestic scale encourages slower pacing and close observation.
Beyond the threshold, works extend into the graded landscape, aligning with architectural lines and native plantings. As sun paths change, shadows trace new geometries across surfaces and ground, sharpening perceptions of proportion and weight. The desert air becomes part of the composition, carrying scent, grit and temperature.
Together these placements stage a continuous experience—house to horizon—where sculpture, architecture and site form a single, legible field.
Set within the otherworldly quiet of Joshua Tree, A Space in Between unfolds as an immersive exhibition where botanical sculpture and modernist architecture act in concert. Conceived, designed, built, and curated by Interlude Studio, the two-day exhibition brings Alejandro Bataille’s work into lucid dialogue with Tera Haus, inviting visitors to move through interiors and desert grounds as if tracing a single contemplative line.
Guided tours articulate relationships between art, architecture and design, foregrounding how the works occupy thresholds, vistas and moments of pause. An artist’s talk opens the making process to view, mapping choices of material, scale and placement. Evening viewings offer another register: softened light, long silhouettes and cooled surfaces introduce temporal variation that reframes each piece anew.
Interlude Studio—founded by Francesca Laranga—shapes the conditions that allow the exhibition to land with clarity. Operating at the intersection of architecture, branding, and experiential storytelling, the studio stewards projects from concept to completion with a focus on longevity and measured craft. Beyond the built work, Interlude extends into visual identity, content, and event coordination to align spatial intent, narrative, and audience experience. Tera Haus, designed, built, and curated by Interlude Studio, exemplifies this integrated approach: a modernist dwelling delivered with restraint and care, tuned to host art without distraction.
Joshua Tree’s textures—rock, scrub and wind-shaped topography—mirror the works’ material origins. Within this context, the home’s minimal palette provides a steady backdrop, while the landscape’s tonal variations set a changing register for perception. The exhibition asks viewers to attend to these shifts: the grain of a stem, the cool of concrete underfoot, the hush of a pool surface at dusk. Attention becomes the medium, and space becomes collaborator.
A Space in Between frames sculpture as lived encounter. By embedding botanical forms within a house tuned to light and shelter, the exhibition heightens awareness of how materials behave, how shadows articulate volume, and how place carries memory. Each room and courtyard functions as a precise lens—quiet, exacting, and open to the desert beyond.
Photography: Director of Photography Jacen Sievers
Video: Directed & Edited by Cristi Duncan | Cinematography by Jacen Sievers
