The Desert by the Sea
The Desert by the Sea is a series shot around the Salton Sea in the Mojave Desert of Southern California.
I stumbled across this unlikely destination while browsing through the work on the Californian desert by the American photographer Robert Misrach. Misrach had fascinated me and opened the doors to a new imagination.
I decided to go there twenty years later, to follow in his footsteps, permanently embedded in the poisonous mud of the lake.
The 2,000 km² of intensive farming and the geological nature of the lake and its surroundings are in fact at the root of a major ecological disaster. Saturated with phosphates and pesticides, the lake is in its death throes, forcing its inhabitants to leave its shores, leaving businesses and homes to the hostile elements. All that remains of the golden years are salt-ridden ruins, partially buried by the whims of the lake.
From my three successive visits, I brought back a portfolio with a serene and disturbing aesthetic, both allegorical and, in a figurative sense, dystopian.
S. L., II. 24.
