The Salton Sea
In 1905 and 1906, levees on the Colorado River broke near the California-Mexico border, creating California's largest inland body of water in an area which, at almost 200 feet below sea level, covers 400 square miles. Over the ensuing decades, the Salton Sea became a destination resort, attracting celebrities, and sometimes reaching attendance numbers rivaling those of Yosemite National Park. In the 1980's, however, the mounting salinity and environmental degradation of the sea led to increasing problems, with massive fish die-offs, and thousands of the migratory birds who called the sea home dying as well each year. The resorts were abandoned, and the area became a place where people live hardscrabble lives alongside the decayed remnants of the sea's former glory. Today, the area around the sea is the poorest in California, and the fish and bird die-offs are annual, catastrophic events.
A place of great, almost surreal beauty, the Salton Sea is a metaphor for decay on many levels – it is an environmental disaster that continues to careen out of control, and a physical reminder of the lost American dream. This body of work, which looks at the abandoned and marginalized resorts on the shores of the Sea, is a eulogistic meditation on the beauty that we have lost, and the dreams that have been forgotten. It also serves as a reminder that, despite all that has been lost, traces of the beauty of this place endure.