Water in the West

It's been a productive spring and summer. I was able to go on a couple of roadtrips to Yellowstone and through the southwest, so I took the opportunity to broaden the scope of the project and shoot outside of California. I'm really got I got this chance, since one of the more interesting angles that I'd never have thought of on my own was the Native American perspective. Most of the exhibits in museums and public art dealing with Native American issues uses a very romanticized, out-dated image of tribal peoples:



It's interesting that a river is depicted in this commissioned public mural, since with the exception of a few tribes, most Native Americans have lost the rights to the water flowing through their lands (ie the Navajo traded Colorado River rights for a single community center, not knowing that in the next 50 years, the buyers were planning to expand development Las Vegas and Phoenix, and the water would be worth much much more). Much of their livelihoods depend now on tourism, either to casinos or places like Antelope Canyon or Monument Valley, which hold sacred significance:







Another perspective I hadn't thought about previously was the geologic one. Our understanding of the fossil record, of the past is dependent on the presence or absence of water to preserve remains when catastrophic natural disaster strike or when creatures die naturally. It's ironic that it is sometimes development that unearths some of these geologic records.



I also had a chance to see Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell. We rely on dams and resevoirs for energy and flood control, and they are a great visual representation of how we've altered natural landscapes.





I also want to include a couple of photos from California, touching a bit on the politics and everyday implications of water use for agriculture in a natural desert.





I've just started to develop and scan a couple of last trips out to the valley, and there are still a couple of photos of agriculture and livestock I want to include. I am also trying to put together a short photo book of these photos, and may end up putting more photos into that than I display at Cantor. All that's left is to edit all of them into a coherent whole!