Las Vegas is one of the most unique cities in the world—improbable, young, tourist-driven, dreamlike, escapist, socially and racially diverse, international, broke (yet wealthy) and burrowed into an extreme landscape.

How that backdrop influences the Valley’s art and literary communities is the thrust of 10 x 10: A Creative Exchange Between Visual Artists and Writers at the Clark County Government Center Rotunda. In partnership with the Vegas Valley Book Festival, the invitational paired visual artists and writers of varying media and genres to reflect on issues ranging from architecture and family to the desert environment and foreclosure crisis.

"Interruption," by Brent Sommerhauser

Among the 12 pairings: Jesse Smigel and Alissa Nutting, Jason Adkins and Becky Bosshart, Andreana Donahue and Kathryn Kruse, Sam Davis and Bliss Esposito and Erin Stellmon and Jarret Keene.