Photography | Tamar Granovsky | Wanderings Afar and Near

Beyond, in space, desert brush is green.
before, in time, brush and green
were wind, the sun, the earth

I was introduced to the Salton Sea, California, through the film, “Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea,” and first visited there a few years later, in 2015. I returned another seven times over four years, for a total of seventeen weeks. Time allowed me to become more intimately acquainted with this place and, through photography, I was able to reveal the region through layers so as to give an intimate, emotive impression of what I was seeing.

Because of the pandemic in 2020 my photography project came to an end. As I thought about the work I began to envision the photographs as a book that would also include poems that I had written at night in my motel room, irrespective of the photos I had taken during the day. I researched small photobook publishers and was lucky to find Emily Macaulay of Stanley James Press. Emily designed the book with me and she managed the photo printing. She created the letterpress printed text pages and hand stitched / bound this oversized book in an edition of 75 copies. I did not imagine, when the book was completed in October 2023, that I would turn this project into an exhibition.

Last year, however, I had the opportunity to submit a proposal to the Victoria Hall Gallery, in Westmount, Quebec, and this exhibition was the product: a photo installation with words and sound. It ran from April 11 until May 12.

The photographs in the main gallery space were printed on large sheets of paper (32.5″ x 43.5″ and 41.5″ x 78.5″), and tacked to the wall, unframed, in order to create a more bodily experience. Photographs in an auxiliary space were smaller, more documentary in nature and, framed. I recorded the sound environment around the Salton Sea because, to me, sound is an integral part of the landscape. Gisela Fulla Silvestre, a sound editor and re-recording mixer, let the natural sounds lift the emotional narrative for this exhibition. The poems and sound track in the main area were critical as different ways to enter, feel, and understand the installation. They added another dimension and layer to the work. Sound, words and photographs came together to help visitors become more immersed or absorbed in the work and world of the Salton Sea.

The town is in the middle of the desert. 
The house is in the middle of town. 
Its call is always the same, 

"Come home. Come home."

It’s hot. It’s sunny. 
Few clouds. 
Bone and stone become one, 
here.

A fragment of memory. 
Familiar in this unexpected setting. 
There is solace.

And now to toot my horn – here is a review in the Westmount Independent :

And here is (a poor) video of the exhibition but nonetheless a documentation of it :

Siren Song cover. Photo credit: Curtis James, 2023

Through the millennia the Colorado River has, from time to time, spilled over into the Salton Basin creating lakes in what is now known as California. At the turn of the last century irrigation canals were built along the river to help develop agriculture in the Imperial Valley. Because of that, in 1905, a diverted Colorado River was breached by floodwater and filled up the river valley basin. Thus the Salton Sea, California’s largest lake, was formed there, in the desert. Fish were stocked, birds began flocking to the waters and fishing sports were encouraged. Eventually additional canals were built to supply water to the area. In the mid-20th century more fish were added to the body of water, palm trees were planted along the shoreline, a State Park opened, and developers built luxury resorts; celebrities and ordinary folk came flocking.

But a few decades later, because of agricultural run-off, the Salton Sea became increasingly salinated and fish died out as did grebes and pelicans. In 1999 more than 7.5 million tilapia and croakers died from depleted oxygen in the lake. The Salton Sea Authority states that over 400 species of birds rely on this ecosystem. Migratory birds need the Salton Sea. “In fact it [this ecosystem] is the second most Avian bio-diverse region in the North America, only second to the Everglades.” (https://saltonsea.com/about/faq/) Since the early noughts there have been various plans to restore the area.

Front gate-fold photo of the Salton Sea. Photo credit: Curtis James, 2023

With this as a backdrop I made my first visit to the Salton Sea, in May 2015. Repeated attempts to channel waterways, develop agriculture, and create resorts beside this accidental “sea” left scars on the surrounding communities. This dead sea had visibly evaporated with each visit I made between then and 2019 yet decay and survival clearly coexisted there. Sparseness, the desert’s horizon, open terrain, and the distant mountains still define this world and pulled me in.

My book, Siren Song is the result of a five-year photo project at the Salton Sea. The book is more about the people – or specifically, their absence – than about the land. The photographs are of traces of the everyday in the vicinity of this toxic, abandoned lake. It is a meditation on a place that somehow felt like home to me. The book reveals itself through its tangible dimensions and paper stock and layers of words and images.