As part of my ongoing series of conversations with photobook artists, I recently sat down with Sant Khalsa to discuss her latest monograph, Crystal Clear || Western Waters with Minor Matters Books.
In her latest monograph, Crystal Clear || Western Waters published by Minor Matters, Sant Khalsa explores the commodification of our most basic resource through the proliferation of water stores that came to prominence in the 1990s and early 2000s. These retail points-of-sale typically sold reverse osmosis filtered water in strip malls across the urban, suburban, and rural American Southwest. The series captures the varied storefronts in four Western states, including their quintessential signage, revealing the paradoxical nature of these sites as both necessary and absurd constructs of our capitalist society. Khalsa’s book is a compilation of well-reproduced silver gelatin prints that evokes both nostalgia and criticism and serves as a thought-provoking commentary on the fabrication of human desire and its impact on the environment.
