![]() ![]() While writing that quintessentially American fairytale, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," L. from the massive national debt that over-investment in railroad building had incurred, and it provided the metal required by photography and, later, by the motion picture industry. Much could be said about silver mining - its relationship to the Civil War, to Westward Expansion, and the building of the railways about American Exceptionalism - but suffice to say that silver mined from the Owens Valley area provided the raw material for the twentieth century as we know it. ![]() All this was changed by the discovery of silver in 1860. The grizzly bear was at the top of the food chain, and the native people - the Paiute - lived at peace and in balance with the animal. Tucked between the mighty Eastern Sierra and the Inyo Range, the Owens Lake was part of a glacial-time network of interconnected bodies of fresh water that traversed the landscape and supported a vast array of life. Aqueduct | Photo: Lauren Bon, AgH2O exhibition catalogue. You find yourself standing in the middle of what was once a magnificent lake. The sound of your own breathing and walking fill the vacuum-like space. The sunlight makes the compacted white silica extremely bright. Walk as far as you can, alone if possible. Drive out on one of several roads built by the City of Los Angeles. Highway 395, the treacherous dust does not distort the beauty you see through the windshield. The Owens Dry Lake Bed struck me the minute I saw it. Informed by their efficacy, I designed the "Liminal Camera" to address the monumentality of our complex brownfield subjects. A man, a camera, a limited supply of film and paper - Murray's works are more than just the images we see, they are indexical of their moment in time. Murray's photos were able to bring me to his India, to his journey and his process. They include a thirty-two-acre abandoned train yard a one-hundred-mile dry lake bed Mount Whitney's relationship to Los Angeles, 250 miles away ubiquitous dust mosquito infestations on Los Angeles Department of Water and Power rehydration projects the experience of Septemfor those of us who were not in Manhattan when it happened and the Bonus Army rebellion and its relationship to the Occupy movement. Often these places are indescribable in simple terms. So too did the question of how to communicate the nature of the places upon which the Metabolic Studio focuses - places that are incapable of supporting life: social, political, or physical brownfields. I was visiting the George Eastman House archive during an exhibition of my work from "Not A Cornfield." The tradition of travel photography captured me. John Murray's photographs, which he shot and developed while traveling through India in the late nineteenth century, made a distinct impression on me. 100 years later, KCET is looking at what has happened, what it means, and more.ĭr. On November 5, 1913, the Los Angeles Aqueduct began bringing water to the city. LADWP rehydration projects | Photo: Lauren Bon, AgH2O exhibition catalogue. ![]()
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