Via Long Reads, Ash Sanders at The Believer on the Bombay Beach Biennale.
In a very real way, Bombay Beach sits at the end of the world, figuratively and physically. It sits at the bottom of a river, at the edge of a sea. It lives at the terminus of all our logic, caught inside everything we’ve ever done and all that has ever happened. There is also a truth to this place; in other words, a clarity to the tragedy. And maybe that means we’re not just stuck here. Maybe it means we’re also free to do something new.
Wanda’s talk reminded me of a sculpture I saw my first day on the playa, a staunch metal affair made of copper and die-cut lettering. THE ONLY OTHER THING IS NOTHING, it said. I thought about that sign for the rest of Convivium. I thought about it when I got news alerts on my phone from the outside world: men shaved, shackled, and pressed together in a Salvadoran prison. A student protester abducted off the street. Forests opened for logging; the planet sold for parts. I thought about how wide the gap can be between the end of one world and the beginning of a new one, and how, in some places, that gap becomes narrower by virtue of idealism or necessity. And so we sit in that strange lacuna between what we have done and what we must do next. The situation is impossible; there are endless possibilities. The world ends; the world begins again. The feeling is grief. And the feeling is also joy.
I was lucky enough to attend the Biennale in 2024; here’s a pic of the sign in question. I think about this sign almost every day.
