As many of you know, the Salton Sea is the largest inland body of water in the State of California and is about a 40 minute drive from Palm Springs.  The sea has been dieing, along with the millions of fish that call it home.  The towns that sprung up around the shore of the sea during its mid-century heyday have also been dieing and today resemble a community in a b-rated post-apocalyptic movie.  Driving around the expiring sea, smelling the decaying corpses of the fish that line its shores and viewing the dilapidated mid-century structures creates a sense of surrealism.

One of the former resort cities in the Salton Sea area, Bombay Beach, has been attracting artists as of late who have transformed many of the broken-down shacks into cultural attractions.  In addition, the community now hosts an annual event called the Bombay Beach Biennale;  The event, according to its website, is described as follows: "This renegade gathering was a celebration of and for the locals, artists, creators and volunteers who are transforming Bombay Beach into a newly relevant year-round cultural destination.  The biennale is an exuberant celebration of art, music, and philosophy, which leaves a lasting mark on Bombay Beach, a small town at that refuses to be forgotton or written off, even as the man-made lake it was built upon risks disappearing.

Following is part of a part of a Palm Springs Life article about the event:

"We were somewhere near H Avenue, climbing the berm that separates the tiny town of Bombay Beach from the sick and shrinking Salton Sea, when an aria pierced the gale-force wind and stopped us in place.

The conditions were cold, dark, and gusty. Yet the voice of Kate Feld, a soprano from L.A., carried all the way from the Bombay Beach Opera House, an upcycled dwelling on E Avenue with a bright-blue façade that opens to audiences gathered in the front yard and on the street. She gave us a brief, beautiful moment in the unforgiving elements but had finished performing by the time we walked there.

On the empty adjacent lot, a hand-painted sign for the Bombay Beach Botanical Garden led us to a larger-than-life-size ceramic flower “skeleton” created by L.A. artist Yassi Mazandi. A block away, at the Hermitage Museum, another L.A.-based artist, Greg Haberny, mounted an exhibition titled Why Do I Destroy Everything I Love? 
And across the street, The Monster That Challenged the World was screening at the Bombay Beach Drive-In, a graveyard of gutted autos facing forward and rotting like the tilapia on the nearby shore.  to see the entire article, click here:  https://www.palmspringslife.com/bombay-beach/