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Rebuilding through the Arts

New Orleans is a beautiful example of a city taking action to rebuild in dire times. Through the arts, New Orleans created beauty and brought together a community by drawing upon its past, referencing the present and helping rebuild its future.

New Orleans has had countless projects and efforts involving the arts and community rebuilding since Katrina. Here are some examples:

In 2008 in collaboration with the Joan Mitchell Foundation, The New Orleans Council of the Arts sponsored 20 public art works to be placed around the city for a two year period. Some related directly to the storm while others drew upon New Orleans Culture and history. The works included:

• A wall-like structure varying in heights that stretched miles around the city. The height of the wall reflected the water level that drowned the city in the days following Katrina.
•  Another artist constructed a white stoop that lit up at night (see picture). This stoop reflected both the “stoop culture” of New Orleans prior to the storm (where home owners sat outside after work, talking to their neighbors) and the remnants of the storm (in once overpopulated areas, the stoops were in some places the only things surviving after the storm).
• One participatory work involved an artist taking found objects to create an installation of pieces of New Orleans. Everyday he’d find different objects left by members of the community who wanted a piece of their history and community included in the work.

Read more about the New Orleans Council of the Arts’ more current projects here (http://www.artscouncilofneworleans.org/)

Another art project after Katrina involved the installation of streetcar statues that were painted by different artists. The streetcar is an iconic image of New Orleans and these works helped bring together the old and the modern of the city. (see more about street car art here: http://www.streetcarart.com/)

Keith, an artist in the Lower Ninth, converted a home into his art studio. Keith’s photographs capture the life and history of the community and he believes his works should be displayed in the community which they capture. He noted that people in the Lower Ninth, don’t feel comfortable going to a museum in the Garden District (where most art galleries are located) where they may feel out of place. By placing his gallery in the Lower Ninth he also encourages outsiders to come into this neighborhood where they wouldn’t otherwise and both see the devastation that still exists and break the stereotype that the Lower Ninth is just a dangerous poor neighborhood--it has so much more life and great people than the neighborhood is given credit for. After the storm, Keith collected broken parts of the city to help re-build his gallery. He collected abandoned pieces of wood to construct a fence in his backyard so that when people come to his gallery they can feel the presence of the city and so that he can keep alive what may have been lost in the storm. (Read more about Keith here: http://www.soros.org/resources/multimedia/katrina/fellows/calhoun.php)

In an article entitled “Can the Arts Change the World? The Transformative Power of Community Arts”, Abby Scher, a community organizer involved in a group who gathered in 2005 to research and answer this question, provides insights into arts and transforming a community. She notes: “community arts can create a safe space that allows us to trust and be open to change...Art can serve as a speed bump, slowing us down to reflect...Art can honor our past by creating a record of what we have done, thus anchoring us for our move into the future”.

http://wagner.nyu.edu/leadership/reports/files/cantheartschangetheworld.pdf

Public art in a city helps not only brighten a city but allows people to reflect and heal. It causes people to remember, to question and to feel a tie with their city. It brings people together; it builds communities. New Orleans is a great city to look to for examples of Community art.

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