AIRUT

Airut (Harbinger) is a portrayal of the gradual death of lakes.

The work spans across California through site-specific installations situated and photographed at four different lakes: Clear Lake (Xa'Batin), Mono Lake (Ten'iega Bah), Owens Lake (Patsiata), and Coyote Dry Lake. Each representing different stages of a lake's life cycle, from teeming Clear Lake to dead and dry Coyote Lake. In a solemn procession of photographs, a makeshift tripod suspends an elongated stone, which acts as a metaphorical measurer of water levels.

As the rock is submerged in lakes at diminishing stages of life, it becomes abstracted into something like an aniconic object that forebodes rather than measures. It becomes intimately connected with humanity's problematic manipulation of Nature and its unintended consequences: the deadly dust storms of Owens Lake and the evaporating vitality of Mono Lake. The rock reveals itself as a messenger and a reminder that in the end, all bodies of water will die and become desert.