(Source: behindthewalkin, via itswhatiwant)
We recently wrapped up the Prospect.2 New Orleans Biennial book. The publication contains the work of 27 international artists as well as essays from Dan Cameron and Miranda Lash, among many other treats. Look for it on shelves in Spring.
Prospect.2 New Orleans. 2012. 160pgs. 6.5in. x 9in., hand-sewn exposed binding. Designed by Constance.
Katrina breach sites nominated for National Register of Historic Places
A grassroots group is pushing to have the sites of two levee breaches during Hurricane Katrina placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The group’s founder said Thursday that the mission is to change the belief that the storm caused the flooding in New Orleans after Katrina struck in 2005, killing hundreds across six states, with a majority of fatalities in Louisiana.
“It was engineering failure,” said Sandy Rosenthal, who also serves as the director of the group, Levees.org.
The two nominated sites, which caused most of the flooding in New Orleans, are the 17th Street Canal and the Industrial Canal near the Lower 9th Ward, which is owned by the corps.
Lawmaker: Bring National Guard back to murder-ravaged New Orleans
New Orleans’ murder rate is 10 times the national rate. There were 199 murders in 2011, and just a few weeks in to 2012, there have been 20 slayings.
What could possibly stop the killing on the streets of New Orleans?
Gulf of Mexico oil spill: BP loses bid to make others pay compensation
A US federal judge has told BP that contractors Transocean and Halliburton do not have to help pay compensation over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill because they are protected by their contracts.
More than 750m litres of oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico after the undersea well blew out on 20 April 2010 and was not capped until July.
BP, Transocean and Halliburton have been sparring over who was at fault for causing the blowout. Federal investigators have said BP, the well’s owner, bears ultimate responsibility for the spill but have faulted all three companies to some degree.
(Source: Guardian)
Nice to see the New Orleans arts community growing, and interestingly along the crescent on this map we update for Catalogue— a bi-monthly printed living listing of galleries and institutions that host rotating visual art shows. It is distributed freely in art spaces as well as shops, events and other places of local interest.
In The Music Box, New Orleans Residents Hear Hope
Morgan Sasser/New Orleans Airlift
When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, it left behind a city full of destroyed homes. Despite ongoing rebuilding efforts, thousands of blighted properties remain. Now, a group of artists is creating a structure that is part home, part musical instrument and part inspiration of what can be made of these damaged properties.
The Music Box is a small village of ramshackle sculptures huddled together on Piety Street in the Bywater section of the once-flooded 9th Ward. The sculptures are outfitted as musical instruments and are made almost entirely of the remains of the 18th-century Creole cottage that used to sit on this lot. The Heartbeat House is one of these musical sculptures: It’s an A-frame shack with a rotating organ speaker perched on top. The speaker is attached to a stethoscope — which broadcasts the heartbeats of those who stop to engage with the art. “Unlike a church bell [that] calls people to congregation or an alarm, what we want to have is a heartbeat,” explains curator Delaney Martin. “This primal beat that calls to the people of New Orleans and says: Come out and dance, come out and sing, come out and have fun.”
The Historic New Orleans Collection currently is showing The Eighteenth Star: Treasures from 200 Years of Louisiana Statehood. The show contains stories that have defined Louisiana since its entry into the Union on April 30, 1812, as the eighteenth state.
The show will stay up until January 29th.
above: Drinking water donated after Hurricane Katrina by Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 2005.
good:
When It Comes to Wetlands, It’s Hard to Improve on the Original
Ecologists have found that restored wetlands are not as ecologically valuable as the originals—a new analysis of 621 wetland sites shows that, on average, restored wetlands regained only about three-quarters of their original biological performance.
Find out why on GOOD→
(via ubiquitousamericana)
New Orleans Arena could become ‘Seafood Arena’
Could the New Orleans Arena be getting a new name? A big local industry is considering it, but who it is may surprise you. It’s not a local corporation — it’s the local seafood industry.
The Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board is considering a sponsorship that would rename the arena the “Louisiana Seafood Arena.” Harlon Pearce with the board said renaming it “The Louisiana Seafood Arena” would be a great way to counteract negative publicity from the BP oil spill — they would even use BP’s money to help pay for the sponsorship.
“Since the BP oil spill, we got $30 million for marketing and branding, so we’re trying to capitalize on the use of that money,” said Pearce.
Helping the world with Mardi Gras bead mosaics
Stephán Wanger is saving the world, one plastic Mardi Gras bead at a time.
The long center table in Stephan’s Galeria Alegria is lined with dozens of clear cups, each filled with beads in a particular hue. Aquas here, cranberries there, tangerine and shell pink and translucent pearls – a veritable rainbow of bright little orbs, enough to fill a goodly portion of a curbside dumpster, which is exactly the point.
“Seven thousand tons of plastic Mardi Gras beads go into landfills every year,” says Stephán. “If you combine what we’ve thrown away in the past 20 years with what we will throw away in the next 10, you have the exact tonnage of the BP oil spill.
“You know the difference? Oil is organic and dilutes in water. Plastic stays forever.”
Stephán’s solution to the problem is an artistic one: He has used more than 1 million beads so far in the oversized mosaics he creates in his Magazine Street studio. He also teaches bead mosaics to elementary school students and at in-gallery workshops.
New Orleans native and artist Emilie Gossiaux’s story as told by WNYC’s Radiolab won the Silver Documentary award at the Third Coast/Dreihaus Awards last year. While studying at art school in New York in 2010, Emilie was hit by an 18-wheeler on her bike, survived, and continues making artwork despite her injuries. Radiolab did a fantastic job telling her story, listen here to Finding Emilie.
Image: Emilie Gossiaux in August of 2010 via CNN
