Slab City - artistic community or post apocalyptic wasteland?

Immature Fauxtographer
Oct 8
3 min read

Slab City, California. Hmmm... I'm definitely into strange and really out there art more than the typical Kansan. I mean, one of my life goals was to go to Burning Man (back in the early days before I ruined my life by getting married too early. Then, as I get older I realize there's no way I could make it in the desert with no real bathroom or shower for over a week. ANYWAYS....) I was so excited to experience this art community in the desert that my travel partner had presented the idea of to me.

So, things started out well. We first passed by this sign in Niland:

And then came across this display called Salvation Mountain:

The most interesting part of this massive artistic expression were the two porta potties on the property. I was straight up against even looking inside but my travel partner needed to go. When she told me "they're actually quite clean!" I thought she for sure was leading me into a trap to see a sight I would never be able to scrub from my mind. Once I dared to enter I was absolutely floored! In a good way! Not only were they probably the cleanest outdoor toilets I've ever seen in my life but they even had a little rudimentary faucet outside of them to be able to wash your hands! Praise the Lord! If that isn't a testament I don't know what is!

After Salvation Mountain was the most interesting drive of my life - Slab City.

When we first entered we passed by some sort of concrete shack:

Alright! Cool! I love some bold graffiti. It was a little simple but direct and effective. I give it a 6/10!

And then some interesting water retention containers (? I have no idea what they were actually):

8/10 for those bad boys. I could see some ideas coming through with those designs.

(P.S. that orange creature in the left picture I saw in multiple random locations in the desert. That artist definitely got around!)

Next came a Breaking Bad inspired set up:

Then shortly after this it was like....umm...are we going to die here? In the daylight it looked like we narrowly missed the apocalypse that just came through and at night I imagine it resembles the bowels of hell.

Trash, trash, trash everywhere. People were maybe trying to make it art but most of it wasn't hittin' right.

There were a few cool displays, but again, the trash and feel of danger in the air were distracting from it:

My travel partner (who thoroughly researches destinations before arriving) mentioned this display was called the Sole Tree:

Could've been interesting but given the surrounding environment it was a lil' creepy. Like....where did all those shoes come from? How were they collected?

Slab City was touted as an artistic community yet throughout the drive we only saw a couple people emerge from their hovels and they did not look like the quirky, cute, artsy humans I was expecting. They appeared dazed, ravaged by the desert and like they were barely surviving the aftermath of a week long bender in a wasteland. Yes, I realize we passed through during a hot part of the day but there was no one sitting out under the shade having community moments. Instead they all were seemingly in the cramped, extremely run down RVs that I can't imagine had effective air conditioning or plumbing.

There was some sort of "bunker tours" being advertised but I had a feeling if we went in those "bunkers" we would not be coming out the same, if at all. So we did a hard pass on that opportunity. Might regret it later but I'll take that gamble.