Misrach’s most significant project, Desert Cantos, investigates deserts as sites of the complicated and sometimes antagonistic relationship between humans and the environment, drawing the viewer into consideration of the darker realities behind often stunning images. In this case, he finds a quiet beauty of pastel tones, watery reflections, and glowing light at the site of what has been called “the biggest environmental disaster in California history.”

For millions of years this low-lying area alternated between a freshwater lake, when the Colorado River emptied into it, and a desert basin, when the river ran to the Gulf instead. But beginning in 1905, decades of irrigation, canal, and dam projects led first to a thriving tourist area and then to a catastrophic environmental situation. Now the Salton Sea is twice as salty as the Atlantic Ocean, resulting in mass wildlife die-offs and bacterial and algae blooms; as the sea shrinks, toxic particulates are exposed that the wind then blows across the region.

—Text taken from the Carter Handbook (2023)