Document. Winter 2021. Salton Sea, possibly the largest source of lithium in the world. 🔋 Reimagining our relationship to land. A 24 page portfolio photographed in Slab City, an unincorporated off grid city, deep in the Sonoran Desert, California. Slab city is a community which refutes the idea of land ownership. It is a sanctuary to many, who can park their RV or pitch their tent without the need top pay rent. A place where the houseless are no longer homeless. Sadly, this communities time seems to be up. In our never ending quest for ‘green energy', vast deposits of lithium which power our Tesla’s, iPhones and power storage for renewable energy have recently been discovered beneath the adjoining Salton on Sea - the land has gone from being a worthless polluted wasteland to some of the most sought after real estate in the world. According to the Gates Foundation - "The lithium brine reserves under the Salton Sea could support the entire US EV industry for years”. Mining lithium is by no means a green process, according to Guillermo Gonzalez, a lithium battery expert from the University of Chile and echoed by environmental organisations such as Friends of the Earth, “Like any mining process, it is invasive, it scars the landscape, it destroys the water table and it pollutes the earth and the local wells,” said in a 2019 interview. “This isn’t a green solution – it’s not a solution at all.” @documentjournal @nickvogelson @hannahongley @smrichardson1 @antisocialmedia