After living in a motorhome in the Salton Sea, Nicholas Albrecht\nquestions the notion of being an insider through this intimate\njourney of discovery. Deserts are strange spaces in Western culture;\nwe don't really know how to be in them. There was the biblical\nversion of the desert, the desert as a metaphor for isolation,\nasceticism, temptation, and death. In an attempt to document the\nexperience of living in the Salton Sea, Albrecht breaks down these\nconventions to narrate his story. The photographs become symbolic\nrepresentations of the people and the place. The truth is both vague\nand concrete as thoughts transform into reality. Similarly to how\ndreams are constructed, One, No One and One Hundred Thousand is\na chaotic representation of life, identifying with one and its opposite.\n\nNicholas Albrecht was born in\nNaples, Italy in 1982. His involvement\nwith the arts began while studying\nfashion in Milan. Upon graduation he\nstarted working as an Art Director for\nthree venues in Naples and Rome.\nDuring his years as an Art Director in\nItaly, Nicholas had the chance to work\nwith students and professors from the\nAcademy of Fine Arts in Naples.\nHis close relationship with Ludovica\nRambelli and her continuous theatrical\nresearch inspired him to research\nmore of his own interests. He started\nusing photography as a research tool,\nwhich ultimately pushed him to\ncontinue his studies and relocated him\nto San Francisco. There he earned an\nMFA in Photography and developed a\nclose relationship with the medium.\nIn his work, Nicholas concentrates on\nthe connection between individual and\nland and, in a greater context, how that\ninfluences social relations and notions\nof self. In 2012, Nicholas was awarded\nthe Our World Portfolio Review\nscholarship and was selected to be\npart of the prestigious 100 attending\nthe Santa Fe Portfolio Review.\n\nMagical Thinking is a not-for-profit publishing and educational\ninitiative founded by Joshua Lutz and Tara Cronin in 2010. Its\ncommitment to furthering our understanding of the importance of how\nimages function revolves around a programme of books, exhibitions\nand educational workshops.