Wrestle with the earth forever
Botanists, satellites, and politicians
Dig, dry, destroy
The butterfly effect
Uncanny playspace
Turbine testing and wind on demand
Fluid dynamic domestication
So, is it beautiful?
Monitoring, monitoring, monitoring...
Moving the [atmospheric] river
Exhibition
Curatorial Conversation
Gallery
About
The work that happens at Owens Lake is physical. And it is hot. And cold. And dry. And wet. It is also never ending. This archive presents a series of photographs and artifacts from the day to day labor on the lake’s surface. Taken by the workers themselves, these images bring us closer to what it means to spend an hour working on an infinite task.
Our work now keeps the dust at bay, but if we ever leave it will return. So we stay. We wrestle.
Within these photographs and also outside their frames, we see the relentlessness of the work and the determination required to fight this ongoing battle against not just the elements of the day, but also the ceaselessness of the opponent. Each photograph freezes a moment in time, yet every task shown has been repeated many times over. A bolt tightened, a pipe replaced, an acre tilled, a hole dug, a wire relaid. Yet, the men and women here will insist that despite the appearance, no two days out on the lake are the same. Somehow, despite the repetition of the sisyphean task at hand, the lake environment provides its own endless stream of new variables.
Although many levers are pulled, buttons are pushed, and decisions are made from remote locations unfamiliar with the taste of the toxic dust, we must not lose track of the workers operating on the ground, in the ground, and with the ground. LADWP’s team at Owens Lake works around the clock to wrestle this landscape into temporary submission. Fully aware that they are merely custodians, battling through decades of shifts to just be able to pass the same task to the next, younger, person.
At times, some do talk of a serenity on the lakebed. When the dust isn’t blowing, and sunglasses are on. There is beauty here. Of the haunting variety. Talk to enough workers and you hear of a certain spirituality of man holding hands with nature in a daily tug of war. It is Native American land after all, and many workers are open about a spirit of connectedness with the earth that keeps them at the job. Yet, when the winds rush down out of the Sierra Nevada and the air returns to that dark red that suffocates the yearning blue sky, everyone admits they question it all over again.
Work here is not easy, but it must continue. Despite the viciously relentless weather and the all-shredding granularity of the dust.
Wrestle with the earth forever. That is the plan. It is a frequent saying among the lake workers that mother nature whips extra force into this place because she is angry at us. Like a hooked fish thrashing to get free.
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