Artists Respond to Hurricane Katrina September 1, 2007

The second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina provides an appropriate occasion to showcase the abundance of video work emerging from artists both in and outside of the Gulf Coast region. September’s program brings together three short and very different works produced in the wake of the disaster.

Brooklyn-based Liza Johnson’s South of Ten (10 mins., 2006) offers ten vignettes from the everyday lives of residents of coastal Mississippi. New Orleans filmmaker Ivor Shearer’s Waterline Simulacrum (32 secs., 2006) is a powerful visual reminder of the extent of damage in New Orleans. One of the first filmmakers to gain access to the catastrophically devasted Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans was Ben Mor, who’s based in Los Angeles. His Help is Coming (8 mins., 2006) presents a telling view of the harsh reality that victims of the disaster faced and the empty promises on which they relied.

Official Website: http://www.wexarts.org/fv/index.php?eventid=2383