Elliot Ross: A Question of Balance

A thoroughgoing photographic documentation of water inequity in the American West

In A Question of Balance, Taiwanese American photographer Elliot Ross (born 1990) charts how water inequity falls along urban-rural and racial lines within the same arid landscape of the American West. The Diné of the Navajo Nation, the largest Native reservation in the United States, have lived with the scarcity of water for decades; in fact, one in three Diné must haul water to their homes across long distances. In contrast, 80 miles away in Utah's well-heeled, suburban Washington County, pools and golf courses abound. Residents rely on the same water source as the Diné but pay less for water than almost anyone in the country, and until recently, used the most. In an ever-warming world where climate change's impacts will be increasingly felt, Ross' photo project serves as a wake-up call to the severe ramifications of America's gross economic disparity.