Sarah Aziz
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Tumbleweed Rodeo | 2025 Paseo Project Artist in Residence
The Paseo Project welcomes artist, researcher, and architect Sarah Aziz to Taos as our summer Artist-in-Residence for Tumbleweed Rodeo, a participatory public art project that transforms tumbleweeds, earth, water, and fire into a community-built architectural installation.
Taking place in partnership with Hotel Willa, Revolt Gallery, and Twirl, Tumbleweed Rodeo invites the Taos community to help construct a 6’ x 6’ x 6’ temporary architectural form made from tumbleweeds, cob, dirt, water, and fire. Through hands-on building, storytelling, performance, and public gathering, the project explores the strange history, movement, and material potential of tumbleweeds across the high desert landscape.
Far more than an icon of the American West, tumbleweeds carry complex histories. Their spread across the United States is tied to agriculture, land division, war, drought, and shifting patterns of settlement. In Tumbleweed Rodeo, Aziz uses the tumbleweed as both material and metaphor — a border-crossing plant that resists fixed boundaries and asks new questions about displacement, land stewardship, and belonging.
Over the course of the residency, Aziz will work with community members to shape tumbleweeds into a temporary form, cover the structure with layers of cob by hand, and ultimately burn out the tumbleweed formwork to transform the structure through fire. The project merges ecological research, architecture, performance, and community labor into a shared public artwork rooted in Taos’s layered landscape.
About the Project
Tumbleweed Rodeo is an evolving artistic and ecological experiment that reimagines invasive plant matter as architectural material. Through collective making, the project asks how overlooked, unwanted, or misunderstood materials might help us think differently about land, movement, adaptation, and community.
The project invites people to participate directly in the process — by making, mixing, building, watching, listening, and gathering. Community members of all ages are welcome to join public programs throughout the residency, from a youth workshop to a community cob build day and a culminating burn event at Revolt Gallery.
Documentation from the Taos residency will become part of the growing Tumbleweed Rodeo digital archive at www.tumbleweedrodeo.com.
Public Programs
Youth Workshop: Tumbleweed Rodeo at Twirl|
Saturday, July 25, 2026
11 am–1 pm
Twirl, 225 Camino de la Placita, Taos, NM
Through hands-on artmaking and playful exploration, children and families will investigate the surprising journeys of tumbleweeds and discover how art, ecology, architecture, and community come together in creative new ways.
Artist Sarah Aziz will share the foundations of her Tumbleweed Rodeo project and guide participants in creating paint-based artwork inspired by the movement, patterns, and ecological stories of tumbleweeds across the high desert landscape. Come create, experiment, and explore as art and environmental imagination collide.
Tumbleweed Cob Build Day
Saturday, August 1, 2026
12–8 pm
Revolt Gallery, 222 Paseo Del Pueblo Norte, Taos, NM
Community members are invited to take part in constructing the tumbleweed building. Participants will mix cob — dirt and water — and apply it by hand to the tumbleweed structure while enjoying local music, food, and conversation.
No experience is needed. Participants should wear closed-toed shoes and clothes that can get messy. Volunteers are also needed before and during the event to help mix cob, support participants, and assist with setup and cleanup.
Tumbleweed Rodeo — Burn Festival
Saturday, August 8, 2026
5 pm arrival / 6 pm burn
Revolt Gallery, 222 Paseo Del Pueblo Norte, Taos, NM
The project culminates in an evening fire event as the tumbleweed formwork is burned out, transforming the cob structure through heat and flame. The gathering will include food, music, performance elements, a rodeo clown, and a curated tumbleweed-inspired menu.
Doors open at 5 pm, with the burn beginning at 6 pm. The event is free and open to the public.
Additional artist talks and public programs will be announced.
Get Involved
Community members are encouraged to attend, participate, volunteer, and follow the development of Tumbleweed Rodeo throughout the residency.
To volunteer or learn more, contact paseo@paseoproject.org.
Artist Bio:
Sarah Aziz is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of New Mexico and a PhD student at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. Her background as a second-generation British Pakistani informs her research practice that maps patterns of migration across multiple scales and geographies, starting with her grandfather’s walk from Delhi to Lahore during the Partition of British India. Currently, she is working with collaborators from across the Great Plains to tag, track, and build with tumbleweeds because they defy human-made borders and ask new questions of indigeneity and invasiveness. Her drawing work has been featured in AD Magazine, PLAT Journal, Architect Magazine, Soiled, and CLOG. Most recently, she was awarded a 2023 Architectural League Prize with Lindsey Krug, and in 2021, the pair received an ACSA Course Development Prize in Architecture, Climate Change, and Society to study the 19,400+ extra-ordinary Dollar General stores in America.
She is a recipient of Art Omi, MacDowell, and UW-Milwaukee Fitzhugh Scott Innovation in Design Fellowships and has held Visiting Professorships at the University of Colorado Denver as the inaugural Visiting Assistant Professor of Architecture with an Emphasis on Issues of Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, and Texas Tech University.
Aziz conceptualized ‘Tumbleweed Rodeo’ in Lubbock, Texas, in 2019, with two West-Texas-based collaborators: artist and rancher Jack Craft and artist and farmer Eric J. Simpson. Aziz, Craft, and Simpson worked with stakeholders from across the Great Plains to develop and exhibit the project. Places include the CO+OPt Research and Projects (2019), Charles Adams Studio Project (2019), the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts (2021), in Lubbock, Texas, At’l Do Farms in Shallowater, Texas (2021), and space p11 in the Chicago Pedway (2020). Aziz has received grants from Texas Tech University, the University of New Mexico, CO+OPt Research and Projects, Acute Angles, and the University of Colorado Denver to run ‘Tumbleweed Rodeo’ workshops, undergraduate and graduate-level courses, dérives, performances, construction events, workshops, and dinners. In 2021, Aziz was awarded a MacDowell Fellowship to develop a plan for increasing the scale of the participatory public performances, such as adobe-mixing dance parties. In 2022, she was selected for a residency in Silverton, Colorado, by The Residency Project to create small-scale prototypes of the wind berm.
