Salton Sea community becomes art exhibit
Bombay Beach turned into a community-wide renegade art event this weekend with its 4 th Annual Biennale. Artists and residents showcased life at the Salton Sea.
Kirk Strawn, Phoenix, Arizona, resident, said, “Really unbelievable artist’s platform where people can come out and see art that you really can’t see anywhere else.”
Artwork from old scrap metal, plastic, wood, fish bone and whatever’s at hand.
Jeremy Watson, from Phoenix, Arizona, said, “There’s been abandoned houses that have been turned into new art galleries or art exhibits. There’s some very large sculptural art works, kinetic artwork that actually moves in the wind.”
They said the town is a relic of what it used to be and art breathes life into it.
“Trailers or you’ll see houses that are being repurposed for an artistic creation. And people are bringing in big-scale art and doing installation of sculptures,” Strawn said.
An old house turned opera venue. A discarded fuselage turned into a Davinci fish, a large sculpture made of mixed materials that can move with the wind.
Royce Carlson, co-creator of the Davinci fish, said, “Salton Sea is kind of a dying lake. It used to have a lot of fish in it. But the fish are dying off. A lot of times you find fish skeletons on the shore of it. In its mouth and its tail, you see there’s plastic stuff and pieces of net.”
Objects that shouldn’t be found inside real fish.
Shaun Guerrero, co-creator of the Davinci fish, said, “What I’ve tried to build is an appreciation and a dignity to the people that live out here that they are regarded and respected in a way; that they do have value.”
The artwork is a tribute to the community and a warning to everyone.
William Eichelberger, from Lake Tahoe, said, “And you want people to question their environment themselves and also their place involved. Almost just like a pictorial history of how this place was and is and what’s going to happen next is up to you to decide.”
Many of the sculptures are installed permanently for the public to enjoy.
