The National Hurricane Center has a penchant for friendly sounding hurricane names, but instead of generating smiles, the natural and by-now familiar responses are fear and compassion. This morning’s Washington Post predicts that more than 30,000 people from Houston and other towns in the region hit by Hurricane Harvey will be forced into temporary shelters as recovery gets underway. Our hearts go out to the people of Texas.
Immediate support is critical right now. Here are a few links people in our network have shared:
Another Gulf Is Possible: Collaborative for a Just Transition in the Gulf.
Circle of Health International: assisting mothers and children affected by Hurricane Harvey.
Coalition for the Homeless, Houston.
Portlight Inclusive Disaster Strategies.
Hurricane Harvey Community Relief Fund.
How can art help?
Citizen Artists across the U.S. have first-person experiences and wise counsel to share with their counterparts in Texas and those in other regions who are asking this question. USDAC folks on the ground in New Orleans and New York during Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy know that important questions need to be asked again, and that humane, creative responses are possible. How will survivors in temporary shelters be treated—and how should they be? Who will hear their stories and help them tell the world what they wish others to know? How can creative action help build resiliency and community in the aftermath of such a shock?
These and other key questions are covered in Art Became The Oxygen: An Artistic Response Guide, the USDAC’s free, downloadable resource for natural and civil emergencies, filled with inspiration, advice, and wisdom from artists and activists who know firsthand what they are talking about.
We invite you to read the Guide, and to view tomorrow’s Artistic Response Citizen Artist Salon featuring Carole Bebelle, Co-founder and Executive Director of Ashé Cultural Arts Center in New Orleans; Mike O’Bryan, Program Manager in Youth Arts Education at the Village of Arts and Humanities in North Central Philadelphia; and Amber Hansen, a co-director of Called to Walls and a visual artist based in Vermillion, South Dakota. You can join live online at 3 pm PDT/4 pm MDT/5 pm CDT/6 pm EDT on Tuesday, 29 August 2017 or wait and watch the recording later this week. (See our blog for tips on organizing a viewing party that can help local folks work together in artistic response.)
Here are just a few of the Guide's excerpts on storm-driven artistic response projects. The Guide contains many more details and links:
Evacuateer is a group that recruits, trains, and manages 500 evacuation volunteers called Evacuteers who assist with New Orleans’ public evacuation plan. They prepare and register evacuees, ensuring their ability to evacuate safely and with dignity.
Evacuspots mark the pick-up locations for the New Orleans City-Assisted Evacuation. Designed by public artist Doug Kornfeld, these 16 14-foot high stainless steel statues are created to withstand 200 years of wear and tear.
Alive in Truth was an all-volunteer project to record life histories of people from the New Orleans region who were affected “by Hurricane Katrina and the federal floods created by levee failure. Our mission is to document individual lives, restore community bonds, and to uphold the voices, culture, rights, and history of New Orleanians.” It was founded by Austin, TX-based writer, social justice activist, and educator Abe Louise Young, working with a large team of interviewers who captured stories. Each story link takes the visitor to a complete transcript with images.
Flood Stories, Too. This 2013 play by the Bloomsburg Theater Ensemble tells the story of the flood of 2011 caused by Tropical Storm Lee, in community members’ own voices. The production was a collaboration between BTE, the Bloomsburg University Players, and the Bloomsburg Bicentennial Choir. The script was based on hundreds of stories gathered from local residents via interviews and Story Circles; it incorporated original songs by Van Wagner and Paul Loomis. The staging resembled a church: seventy performers—children to elders, including some who’d lost their homes to the flood and many who’d taken part in cleanup efforts—were arrayed onstage on risers, the back rows of folding chairs holding Choir members, the other performers filling the front rows. Playwright Gerald Stropnicky, an emeritus BTE member, described the ultra-open casting philosophy: “a terrific cast of community volunteer actors joined the effort; the door was open to any and all willing to participate. No auditions, and no one would be turned away.” The box-office policy mirrored the casting: admission was on a pay-as-you-wish basis.
Photo posted by Vivian Demuth on Sandy Storyline
Sandy Storyline is widely admired as a rich repository of first-person stories relating to the experience of Hurricane Sandy, not just the immediate emergency of being displaced or injured, but also accounts of how the experience affected lives for years afterwards. The project was conceived and co-directed by Rachel Falcone and Michael Premo, working in collaboration with a large team and many sponsors and supporters.
The site puts it concisely:
By engaging people in sharing their own experiences and visions, Sandy Storyline is building a community-generated narrative of the storm and its aftermath that seeks to build a more just and sustainable future. Sandy Storyline features audio, video, photography and text stories — contributed by residents, citizen journalists, and professional producers–that are shared through an immersive web documentary and interactive exhibitions.
Park Slope Armory. Caron Atlas, Minister of Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts on the USDAC National Cabinet, lives in Brooklyn. She was deeply engaged in volunteering at the Park Slope Armory evacuation shelter following Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
In a Summer 2013 GIA Reader article, she described what happened and offered advice for future artistic response. At the invitation of a city council member, Caron, who directs Arts & Democracy, joining with artists and cultural organizations from the neighborhood and across the city,
created a wellness center in a corner of the armory drill floor, with programs that included arts and culture, exercise, massage, religious services, a Veterans Day commemoration, an election-watching party, film screenings, therapy dogs, AA meetings, and stress relief. In essence, the wellness center became the living room of the armory—a place where the residents could come to talk, reflect, create, build community, and even enjoy themselves. It served the staff and volunteers as well.
The article portrays in vivid detail the ways that many different artists—a jazz musician, a dancer, actors and others—interacted with shelter residents, becoming essential to the humane functioning of the facility and to the dignity, respect, and humanity of the residents. Comfort and care were important, but just as much, the work was to cultivate people’s agency to act and to advocate for those in the shelters.
Please share the Guide, take part in the Salon on August 29 or watch the video afterwards. Watch this space for more information about the USDAC’s Artistic Response work to come. Please feel free to get in touch with your own questions and stories about artistic response: hello@usdac.us.