BOMBAY OR BUST: As brands and marketers continue to swarm music festivals, a less commercialized venue gets underway Friday on the West Coast.
The top-secret Bombay Beach Biennale is a mash-up of art, music, film and philosophy set in the desolate California community of the same name. Located on the southern end of the San Andreas Fault near the Salton Sea, Bombay Beach is nearly abandoned, pretty much unrecognizable from the high-flying resort town it was in the Fifties and Sixties when Frank Sinatra and The Beach Boys performed and went sport fishing there. Besieged with environmental problems like pollution, toxic fish and algae in the Seventies, the community has since pretty much dispersed.
Hoping to revive the community and draw attention to the area, the biennale does not charge admission to the festival or such attractions as Lectures in the Ruins, International Art Pavilions, the Bombay Beach Drive-In and the Bombay Beach Intergalactic Space Station. Organizers are encouraging attendees to support local establishments in what is known as “the town that once was” and is located 244 feet below sea level. Festivalgoers can also make donations to support the artwork which includes scale models of recently unearthed urban plans found in
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