Nieves de la Fuente: Catching Dust

In the organizer's words:

In 2023, Nieves de la Fuente spent three months at the Villa Aurora near Los Angeles as a Villa Aurora scholarship holder of the KunstSalon. There she traveled several times to the Salton Sea, which was the focus of her research and artistic work on site. The body of water in the Californian desert was created artificially when an irrigation canal burst. While the area around the lake flourished as a vacation paradise in the 1950s, pollution gradually increased in the 1970s. Today, the lake's toxic fumes cause respiratory diseases in the now impoverished population around the area, most of whom are Latin American workers.

Nieves de la Fuente focused on the ecological effects of the Salton Sea's increasing toxicity. She focused on the fish and bird species that live there, as well as the changes to the lake caused by climate change and the fact that large lithium deposits have been discovered under the lake.

Nieves de la Fuente's work is characterized by visualized investigations into different contexts and their (impact) effects, in particular ecological issues under the influence of economic interests. De la Fuente does this using various media such as 3D printing, film and photography, digital installations, virtual and augmented reality.
Nieves de la Fuente (*1988, Madrid) studied in Cologne (KHM), among other places, and lives and works in Cologne and Madrid.