Matt Gainer, head of the USC Digital Library, is collaborating with USC's Center for Religion and Civic Culture on a documentary photography and oral history project in Slab City, an informal community located on the remains of a Marine base near the Salton Sea in the Mohave Desert east of Los Angeles. The project explores the impulses that lead people to live "off the grid" and how they create a sense of community and place.
Exploring Community, Worth and Life on the Slabs is supported by a grant from the California Council for the Humanities as part of the California Stories program. You can explore aerial views of Slab City in the photograph below: