Varner Harbor

We woke up very early and went for breakfast to The Cottage Too, a traditional diner with a quirky decoration. I got a ham and cheese omelet, which was good except for the American cheese (who uses American cheese and why?)

After breakfast we head back to the Airbnb because I needed a shower - I had got up just in time for breakfast!

We headed to the Salton Sea, where we wanted to see the first installation of our day: Terminal Lake Exploration Platform (TLEP), by artist Steve Badgett and architect Chris Taylor. The problem with a floating laboratory going around a huge lake and researching its ecosystem is that, well, you're unlikely to see it unless it happens to be right in front of you when you show up there. And that's what happened.

In any case, the Salton Sea is a pretty interesting place with or without artworks. It was created at the beginning of the XX century when failed irrigation canals diverted the Colorado River into the basin. It took engineers more than half a year before they diverted the river again, and by then the lake had grown to its current size. It's not that the environmental implications were known right away. First, it became a fishery and later, in the 50s, it turned into a tourist spot with resorts and activities that attracted people like the Beach Boys. It also served as a repository of military testing at some point.

The salinity and the agricultural runoff, among other factors, destroyed the ecosystem, and the water got polluted. Many of the animal species died and the resorts were abandoned. The water is slowly turning into a salty dust bowl and the area, mostly empty, carries a weird smell from the dead fish.

From the Desert X website: "The artists read the Salton basin as reflector of present ecological and political conditions—at once dire, present and ignored. The TLEP invites us to look more closely at our environment and its problems through the fascinating lens of the Salton Sea’s history."

On the same spot, on the beach, was the next piece we wanted to see: Margin of error, by Nancy Baker Cahill, an AR digital work that we good see through the phones. I liked it way more than the one we had seen the previous day. We spent a very long time there, also chatting with a couple who was visiting the exhibition, but it felt quite hot and after a while, I had to go to drink water and move to the shade. Note: don't forget to drink your water when you go to the desert.

Our next stop was Cecilia Bengolea's Mosquito Net, also at the Salton Sea. This one was quite disappointing, featuring a cartoonish flat sculpture with dancers and mutant animals, but the installation was only half of the piece, according to the website:

"Bengolea’s performance piece, Mosquito Net, is not a quest for the universal beauty of nature, but a display of social street dance to invoke the spirit of animals and nature. This piece is a consideration of how humans and animals observe each other, including both real and imaginary animal. Bengolea also includes actual dance poses from her established performances, where she and dancers from Jamaica express animals they feel connected to."

Really close was "Halter", by Eric N. Mack, a textile piece at an abandoned gas station.. This is a description from the Desert X website:

"Using the site of a defunct gas station at the edge of the Salton Sea, artist Eric Mack employs his distinctive language of material as gesture to create a living architecture. Silks and tulles have been stretched with rope tensioned to form a line in space, or to reframe the building’s relationship to itself and its surroundings."

This installation wasn't that interesting and I enjoyed the surroundings better. Next to the gas station stood an abandoned store, somehow showing that you don't really need fabric to make these places look fascinating. On the other side of the road someone had sprayed "Send nudes" on a sign.Read more