Salar de Uyuni

40''x29"

Inspired by a trip of my husband and my son to South America and their reports and stories last year, especially about the peculiarity of the Salar de Uyuni, this work on “Ecosystems” was created. The Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt lake in the world. It is at a height of approximately 3,650 metres and looks like a large ice surface. Only during the raining season it is covered by a thin layer of water.

The landscape is a huge, white area, interspersed with turquoise and red lagoons and bizarre cactus islands. Contours and dimensions get lost on the horizon.

Stored in the approximately 100 metres thick salt crust lays gold, white gold – Lithium. In big pools it is gradually filtered out, processed and refined. As the raw material of the future, without whom no battery works and without no electric car runs. Lithium is needed for e-mobiles, but also for storing solar energy.

It is an unique ecosystem with an ambivalent significance.