Kingdom of Dust: Drought & Decline in California’s Central Valley

February 2 – May 1, 2016

Featuring the work of Tulare County-based photographer Matt Black, “Kingdom of Dust: Drought & Decline in California’s Central Valley” is a visual exploration of a place seemingly light years away from the California most of the world sees.​

Black’s stark photographs, taken over a period of 20 years, capture the poverty that long has plagued many Valley towns and reveal the more recent human costs of the worst drought in the state’s history. From Tulare County residents struggling to cope without running water in their homes to out-of-work farm migrants living in Fresno County homeless camps eerily reminiscent of the 1930s, the exhibit reveals how the drought has compounded some of the state’s most entrenched poverty and threatens to turn productive farmland into a modern day dust bowl.