Struggling to Recover New Orleans: Creativity in the Gaps and Margins
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Struggling to Recover New Orleans: Creativity in the Gaps and Margins MARIA T. BRODINE As an ethnographer currently conducting research in New Orleans, I use my own lived experience and role as curator to explore the way in which Ethnographic Terminalia 2010: New Orleans, Art Spill: Disaster, Art, Activism, and Recovery, and other American Anthropological Association (AAA)–sponsored exhibitions entered ongoing local conversations about boundaries, resistance, recovery, and social action in the post-Katrina era. Taking the position that the exhibition may work as a kind of ethnographic experimentFinvolving collaboration and agitation between various actorsFI build on Shannon Dawdy’s use of archaeological taphonomy to speculate on the role of disruptive curatorial projects in the region’s chronic, ongoing post-disaster recovery process. [art, borders, disaster, exhibit, methodology, New Orleans] Movements the so-called ‘‘stranger effect’’ still does not restrict the practice of ethnography to the discipline of anthropology, he theme of the American Anthropological Associ- and rather invites us to consider whether insider-ethnog- ation’s (AAA) 109th Annual Meeting, ‘‘Circulation,’’ raphers also do cultural work by agitating, ‘‘making the T invited us to ‘‘think across boundaries, whether strange familiar and the familiar strange’’ by reversing those are boundaries organizing phenomena we seek to what is ‘‘other’’ or ‘‘outside.’’ I submit that Ethnographic describe and explain, boundaries within and across disci- Terminalia, and similar exhibitions, provide an experi- plines, or boundaries among anthropologists or other mental opportunity to explore how cultural work is 2 social groups . To turn our attention to zones of performed through the agitation of and around borders. encounter, conjunctions and liminal passages’’ (Heller Olcese has said that a noninstrumental understanding of 2009:16). Recent work in anthropology has exposed the art relies on a recognition that art ‘‘is itself the medium of way in which borders are often creative, highly contested action’’ (2009:5), one that can autonomously produce so- 3 sites of practice and knowledge production in everyday cial change. If ethnography is also a medium of action life.1 Borders have also proven to be excellent sites from (Basu and MacDonald 2007; Latour 1999), the question is which to view architectures of power, because state or in- perhaps less about where art and anthropology intersect, stitutional authority often relies on keeping borders rigid. and more about the relationship between cultural work (of Extending the concept of borders beyond the geographical many types) and social change. definition, then, we can view disciplinary boundaries as similarly contested sites. Very recent work on ‘‘art’’ and ‘‘anthropology,’’ or the anthropological method ‘‘ethnog- New Orleans: Geographies of Uncertainty raphy,’’ have begun to examine how the collaborative and Risk process of ‘‘writing culture,’’ or doing cultural work, is not necessarily a disciplinary effort. To put it another way, the As Heller pointed out, New OrleansFor NOLA, as it is recognition that ethnography relies on dialectical ex- often affectionately called by locals and in social me- changes, circulations, and assemblages and is a ‘‘form of diaFwas a particularly apt location to explore borders: storytelling,’’ rather than some ‘‘formalized knowledge’’ ‘‘The boundary between river and sea, between water (Taussig 2008), emphasizes the fact that the main differ- and earth, is shifting and unclear. The circulation of ence between art and anthropology lies in training, people and other living organisms, of material things, institutional recognition, and the requirements of author- and of ideas in such zones of passage constitutes some of ship. Michael Taussig’s assertion that ethnography relies on the central social and physical processes of concern to all Visual Anthropology Review, Vol. 27, Issue 1, pp. 78–93, ISSN 1058-7187, online ISSN 1548-7458. & 2011 by the American Anthropological Association. DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-7458.2011.01082.x. Struggling to Recover New Orleans BRODINE 79 kinds of anthropologists, historically and in the present’’ resources and struggle to define what constitutes legal- (2009:16). Indeed, the tension between water as a life- ity, public space, and access. giving force and water as a dangerous presence, and the As if answering Louis Armstrong’s croon, ‘‘Do you state of borders themselves as ‘‘zones of passage,’’ is ev- know what it means to miss New Orleans?’’ various in- ident in daily life. New Orleanians are experts at living terlocutors struggle to express NOLA, what it means to with this tension, at living within contested, fragile, and be a New Orleanian, why the place is important to save, at times oppressive borders, and with the knowledge that and why it is in danger in the first place. Armstrong’s it is waterFand the process by which water circu- popular cry is at once nostalgic and plaintive, a desire for latesFthat will ultimately sustain or devastate the recognition from outsiders (or colonizers, including the region.4 It is in this climate that the questions raised by United States) who would marginalize New Orleans, as Ethnographic TerminaliaFregarding borders and their well as a call to locals to ‘‘other’’ those who have not endingsFare not only relevant, but also stand to be in- experienced New Orleans or who would criticize New formed and revised by expert residents who deal with Orleanians for living in, and returning to, a delta be- these questions in an everyday capacity, and by the sought with subsidence, high crime, perpetual disasters, many creative works that deal in some capacity with and a host of other difficulties. In this vein, messages these questions, including street art and tagging prac- about ongoing trauma, violence, and a history of tices (Banksy 2010; The Independent 2010, personal colonization and neglectFand the need for recoveryF communication). The November conference in New are prolific. Orleans definitely brought circulation, principally I was drawn to these kinds of works through my mediated by artworks and innovative networks of current ethnographic research, which follows the history exhibitions and performances.5 Gallery and exhibit of the levee as a colonial technology and explores the spaces (shotgun houses, warehouses) presented them- reconstruction of flood protection technologies in the selves as particularly inviting liminal spaces where the post-Katrina space. I conduct participant-observation amorphous undefinable worlds of art and anthropology with various stakeholders involved in defining and con- could play in conversation with contested and ambigu- structing flood protection, including engineers, public ous spaces. Meanwhile, the New Orleans tradition of officials, and activists. It was the ‘‘activism’’Fin the hosting ‘‘art walks’’ and, arguably, highly participatory form of marches, public demonstrations, social media, street festivals and processions facilitated the movement and various visual artsFthat led me into the world of participants and patrons, so that Ethnographic Ter- of performances, galleries, installations, exhibitions, minalia 2010: New Orleans found itself involved in an and street or ‘‘public’’ tagging and signage. I also found ongoing local conversation about the role of perfor- it necessary to explore the vast amount of work within mance, demonstration, and creativity in social action.6 the so-called ‘‘Katrina genre,’’ so named because of the NOLA is a city surrounded by levees and floodwalls. sheer number of films, books, poetry, and more that As such, it is perhaps no surprise that these and other emerged in direct response to the event and its after- walls often become canvasses, and as a result one of the math. In fact, much of this work helped to define Katrina most striking aspects of the city is its varied and prolific as an ‘‘engineering disaster’’ rather than a natural one by street art.7 In addition, NOLA is divided into a number communicating the findings of engineering reports and of proud and distinguished neighborhoods, several of other studies, revealing the experiences of residents them identified as well-established or up-and-coming during the aftermath, and directly challenging assump- ‘‘historic and cultural districts,’’ the official designation tions found in mainstream media reports. Other works of which influences the ability of residents, entrepre- filled in gaps in governmental infrastructure; for exam- neurs, artists, and organizations to obtain funding and ple, in the absence of street signs in 2005 and 2006, a other kinds of support from art collectors, organizational group of public artists called NOLA Rising painted and funders, investors, public officials, and private sponsors. hung colorful, welcoming ones. Given the prevalent role The panorama of the NOLA ‘‘art scene,’’ from the street of the arts not only as a voice of ‘‘the public’’ but also as to the museum, is thus a hive not only of productionFof a public service, it seemed necessary to further explore ideas and objectsFbut also of struggle and controversy, art as a ‘‘medium of action’’ (Olcese 2009:5) from the as artists and residents alike compete for limited perspective of local actors and by interacting with the Maria T. Brodine is a Ph.D. candidate in Applied Anthropology in the Department of International and Transcultural Studies at Columbia University Teachers College. She is currently conducting research on the post-Katrina