The Salton Sea

The Salton Sea is a big saline body of water amidst the low desert in Southern California. Once created by accident in 1905 when a dam broke and left the Salton Sink to be flooded, it grew into a popular resort area and holiday paradise for the jetset before heat and drought took their toll and turned it into what it is now: a dying body of water, an area that is largely deserted and desolate, with water levels dropping and an ongoing decrease in population, a ghostly place about to be swallowed by the dust within the next few decades. The is a surprising variety of characters living ashore the dying lake. A colorful multitude of answers to the question of what brings or keeps people there, the backgrounds of the place and its inhabitants, story fragments as diverse and scattered in the sand around the shores just like the fishbones and pieces of debris that litter the area. The installation creates small acoustic time capsules, exploring the sonic environments of the Salton Sea area and its surroundings and capturing fragmented statements and stories of locals and visitors. It is complemented by a number of documentary photographs of local housing and visual studies of the colours and textures found around the shore. ---------------------------