Arizona Photography Alliance members and ASU School of Art students and faculty are invited to join Joshua Haunschild for an exclusive Exhibition Tour and Gallery Talk of his MFA Thesis Exhibition.

Empire of Salt showcases my experience and exploration of the Salton Sea drainage basin in Southern California over the course of three years. Witnessing the spectacle of the Salton Sea is what drew me in initially. What intrigued me beyond the dystopian extravaganza of the lake was the region’s unique position to encapsulate so many vital issues facing the American West. The most critical being climate change induced by human indifference. For over one hundred years the Salton Sea has been fed by twenty percent of the Colorado River’s flow via agricultural runoff from the Imperial and Coachella Valleys, saturated with chemicals and pollutants. Due to recent government bureaucracy, the Salton Sea is not receiving enough water to maintain the endorheic lake. Soon the massive but shallow lake will dry up to such an extent that large clouds of toxic dust will rise up and envelop the American Southwest. The drainage basin acts as an indicator for the potential future of the American West, and how we as a society deal with this existential threat. Throughout the millennia there have been many iterations of the Salton Sea that have risen and ebbed away cyclically, but the process was galvanized by human recklessness and negligence. The journey from biblical level flood to the illusion of a human-made ‘Eden’ and now to a degrading anthropogenic mosaic landscape, the Salton Sea drainage basin has reached a critical tipping point, moving towards an inhospitable environment. This is a landscape I find to be of significance, but due to the drainage basins low standing in the politics of elevation, it’s considered nothing more than inconsequential desert terrain that most speed idly through. This exhibition considers the outputs and artifacts of this domain and how the legacy of land usage in the past century will impact future generations.
— Joshua Haunschild

See more about the artist on his website here.

Image © 2019 Joshua Haunschild