Exhibit at CCU highlights artwork by Katrina survivors.
/ Lisa Edge
Six years ago, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and flooded almost the entire city of New Orleans. More than 1,000 people died as a result of the storm.
Some were able to move back and rebuild their lives, including artists who are on the Grand Strand displaying their work as part of an exhibit at Coastal Carolina University. The exhibit is just one way to show that despite the tragedy of the storm, beauty still remains.
Within the walls of the Rebecca Bryan Gallery, visitors are surrounded by a post Katrina New Orleans through the eyes of survivors. Artist Rontherin Ratliff created a piece titled "Things That Float" which demonstrates what he discovered in his grandmother's 9th Ward home after the storm.
"All the furniture in the living room was just floating, and she stored pictures in like these end tables. And the end table toppled over and the floor was just covered with photographs, and it was just this curious thing to see all this heavy furniture floating, but then these delicate like photographs covering the floor. And as I reached down to grab them and collect them, the reality of loss rushed over me at that moment. You know this isn't just happening to everyone else, it's happening to me as well," explains Ratliff.
While the storm may be a distant memory for those living outside the Big Easy, Ratliff says, "Six years later feels like two years later. There's progress in a lot of areas, and there's still just like no progress in others."
Brian Nolan relocated to Marion after he and his wife lost almost all of their possessions.
"You kind of wondered. You looked at the levee walls which were ten feet above your house and said it's kind of suspicious, but everyone would say no you're fine, don't worry about it. But you had a sense that something bad may happen eventually," says Nolan. "When we left, we thought well we'll be back next week. We left everything, sort of like Pompei. We left everything as it was. We thought well we'll be back we'll resume our life, and we never got to go back. By the time we went back, it was a month and a half later and everything was destroyed by that point."
Nolan is showcasing three residual images. He was able to recover old slides and rephotographed them creating a pre- and post-Katrina in one photo. "Even in the worst of circumstances something beautiful can happen. There's always hope, and there's always a way to express yourself regardless of what happens to you in life."
Artist Frank Aymami chose to highlight a desolate Six Flags amusement park. The rides are still there, only it's empty and overgrown.
"Everybody is used to seeing these murky dark looking images, stuff that was flooded, and it still hasn't been touched or anything like that, so I wanted to present it in a way that it kind of caught somebody's eye. Because a lot of people in New Orleans are so used to it that they hardly even notice it anymore," says Aymami. "I didn't want people to get brought back to that bad feeling that they get."
The largest piece of art in the exhibit is titled Trinitas. The wall installation is comprised of dozens of clear Ziploc bags containing images and items with sentimental value for Katrina victims. The piece is also symbolic in that after the storm many survivors gathered what was left and put them in bags just like these for safekeeping.
"Just allow people to connect with each other. Think about this is not only one story these are many stories," says Jan Gilbert.
Friends of Gilbert lost their lives in the storm. She, along with several other family members, lost their homes. Despite the devastation Gilbert describes the people of New Orleans as "amazingly resilient."
Gilbert hopes those who view the artwork will be empathetic to their struggles and other hurricane victims, "There are other coastal communities right now, Vermont, the Northeast have just experienced Irene, so we're going to be facing this, I hate to say, it it's going to be a continual problem with global warming."
If you're interested in seeing the exhibit, it runs until October 7. It's free and open to the public.
