FALLING TOGETHER IN NEW ORLEANS: A Series of Video Vignettes

The trailer for Falling Together in New Orleans

Solo Journalist-Documentary Artist, Farrah Hoffmire was inspired by grassroots organizing and volunteer efforts in the weeks and months after Hurricane Katrina. She has traveled to New Orleans numerous times to create a solo work that is part art-vignette, part documentary film and part grassroots journalism.

In stark contrast to the failure and corruption stories that have dominated mass-media coverage, Falling Together introduces us to powerful people fighting to save lives, preserve culture and bring a sense of well-being back to New Orleans. Conceived as an ongoing, subscription-based platform to follow events in New Orleans as they unfold over the next few years, it also explores the ongoing complexities of rebuilding in areas of the city still severely damaged -- such as the Lower 9th Ward.  The film features music by Ani Difranco as well as some of New Orleans’s top musicians.

The film series has been screened at the following:

• Oral History Association national conference (Little Rock, AR)
• Langston Hughes African American Film Festival (Seattle, WA)
• Lake Eden Arts Festival (Asheville, NC)
• Zeitgeist Film Series (Tulane University, New Orleans)
• Hurricane Katrina Campus Media Project (worldwide 2007-2008)

Vignette 1: Lewis Taylor Is Always Home (released October 2006)

• We’ll meet Lewis Taylor, an elderly gentlemen and “displaced resident” as he finds his family and visits what once was his home, a small fishing village called Boothville. Boothville sits at the tip of Louisiana’s coastline, a place where Taylor spent his whole life farming and fishing. We follow Taylor along his journey as he accepts his fate with humor and insight.

Vignette 2: The Art of Falling Together (released April 2007)

• Witness grassroots groups, volunteers, and residents, as they rebuild threatened neighborhoods such as the Seventh and Ninth Wards immediately after hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Unlike the millions who thought about it watching the story unfold on CNN, meet the people who dropped everything and traveled to New Orleans to see how they could help. It changed some so dramatically they could not leave.

Vignette 3: Emergency Communities

• Emergency Communities - Summer 2007 update.  Reacting shortly after the Hurricane in 2005, Emergency Communities set up the Made with Love Cafe in the devastated St. Bernarnds Parrish. OPP cameras visited EC in Winter 2005 - right after the storms and told thier amazing story in Vignette 2.  We visited EC again in the Summer of 2007 where they are still working hand in hand with the hardest hit areas of New Orleans. Now in the Lower 9th Ward, they face incredible odds but are buyoed by the altruistic efforts of volunteers and residents who treat each other as equals.

Vignette 4: Social Dress New Orleans

• Takashi Horisaki was working 20 hour days in the 100 degree heat when Farrah found him completing an art project like none other she had ever seen. As a project to raise awareness about the situation in the Lower 9th Ward he made a replica of the surface of a shotgun-style house in latex, then taking the replica to New York's Socrates Sculpture Park. Hear about the project and see a true artist devoted to a true cause.

• Music written and composed by Ani DiFranco Please visit: Righteous Babe

VIDEO BLOG: FALLING TOGETHER IN NEW ORLEANS

Falling Together in New Orleans Video Blog posts are snapshots of the characters and situations I encountered during the video journaling process. Some of this footage makes it through to full production, some doesn't, but it is a real-time process to give people access to what I am experiencing while I am meeting people and gathering footage.

• Mama D: The spirit of the 7th Ward

• Rob Savoye and the Welcome Home Community Kitchen

• Lewis Taylor: Displaced Citizen

• John Clark: Social Ecologist

• Phat & Swerve at the Half Moon

• Brandon Darby and Common Ground

• Troy's Message to Bush, Blanco and Nagin

• Dr. Lance Hill

• 7th Ward Lyrical Terrorist 

• Boysie Bollinger: Unique Opportunity

• Emergency Communities 

• Emergency Communities in the Lower 9

• Who Are You Angry At? A Katrina Ballad / CNN Mashup

• Social Dress New Orleans - 730 Days After
  

MAMA D: SPIRIT OF THE 7TH WARD

Weenie on Mama D from OPP and Vimeo.

In order to understand Mama D and her mission to save her community, you have to understand the 7th Ward and its history.

The 7th Ward was considered by many to be the quintessential Creole neighborhood in New Orleans. Many educated and accomplished people of color lived here before the Civil War and throughout the time when Jim Crow laws were in effect. But after desegregation, the city built the I-10 interstate right over the Claiborne neutral ground, destroying the 7th Ward’s prosperous business district in the process.Today the community remembers the beautiful live oaks that were torn down to make way for the interstate by painting images of these trees on the cement pilings that replaced them.

Among the first large land owners was Claude Dubreuil, whose vast estate stretched from the river to Bayou Sauvage and Gentilly. By the late 1700s, this land had changed proprietorship several times and finally came into the holdings of Bernard Marigny, who successfully subdivided the Faubourg Marigny and continued with what was called Nouveau Marigny (between Elysian Fields and St. Bernard and from St. Claude to Gentilly Rd.). When, in 1830, the Pontchartrain Railroad connected the Faubourg Marigny with the settlement of Milneburg on the lake, these lots became more saleable. The railroad helped Nouveau Marigny to grow almost to Gentilly Ridge. 

The area of the Seventh Ward neighborhood that did not belong to Bernard Marigny belonged to Charles de Morand, who also owned most of what is now the Tremé neighborhood. As the Vieux Carre became increasingly overcrowded, people were forced to seek residence in other developing areas of the city and Nouveau Marigny was one of them. The area was settled by the second half of the 19th century. A significant number of German immigrants and French Creole families inhabited the neighborhood by the mid-1800s. However, it was the free people of color who came to characterize the 7th Ward neighborhood.

Free persons of color, les gens de couleur libres, began to settle in New Orleans around 1720. By 1810, they composed about one-third of the city’s population. These people were well-educated, highly skilled in the building trades, spoke perfect French and called themselves Creole. By the mid-1800s, many free people of color had taken up residence in the 7th Ward. Creole 7th Ward families are known for strength in business enterprises, building trades, and music. Successful family-owned businesses, such as insurance companies, laundries, barbershops and funeral homes characterized the neighborhood from the mid 19th to the early 20th centuries.

Jazz flourished in the 7th Ward: When Creole musicians who were classically trained in Europe began to jam with recently freed Africans, who over the centuries of enslavement had maintained the traditional rhythms of their homeland, jazz was born. Not surprisingly, the 7th Ward was home to many early jazz greats.

Jim Crow laws hit the 7th Ward: After the Civil War all people of color were lumped together for the first time, and Creole families experienced a significant social demotion – suddenly being denied access to networks and resources that had previously been available to them as free people of color.

Because Creoles were of European and African descent, they had a lighter skin color than many of the recently freed Africans. Jim Crow laws reinforced the importance of skin color by declaring that anyone with at least “1/8th black blood” (known as an “octoroon”) was technically “colored.” So Creoles began to attempt to distinguish themselves from darker skinned “colored” people. Creoles developed a whole language that included French words but also included several references specific to skin and hair type. 

The 7th Ward is opposite Esplanade Avenue from the Tremé. At one time, the most prosperous African American business-district in the country stretched along Claiborne Avenue from the Tremé into the 7th Ward. In the late 1960s, the 7th Ward’s prosperous business district along Claiborne Avenue was deemed dispensable by the city, so it was destroyed to make way for the new I-10 interstate loop. The rows of quadruple live oak trees were cleared from the neutral ground and the interstate cut the neighborhood in half.

The 7th Ward is opposite Esplanade Avenue from the Tremé. At one time, the most prosperous African American business-district in the country stretched along Claiborne Avenue from the Tremé into the 7th Ward. In the late 1960s, the 7th Ward’s prosperous business district along Claiborne Avenue was deemed dispensable by the city, so it was destroyed to make way for the new I-10 interstate loop. The rows of quadruple live oak trees were cleared from the neutral ground and the interstate cut the neighborhood in half.

Many Creoles worked at the forefront of the civil rights movement as lawyers and organizers. Jim Crow laws were not overturned all at once, but painstakingly one at a time. A.P. Tureaud was a prominent civil rights activist who today is honored in the 7th Ward with a park in his name. A.P. Tureaud was a lawyer for the New Orleans branch of the NAACP. He brought a suit against the state and the Orleans Parish School Board to force the desegregation of public facilities in Louisiana. His successes include the integration of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge in 1952. He also filed suits to obtain equal pay for Louisiana's African American teachers. The plaque in the A.P. Tureaud Park reads:

New Orleans Attorney A.P. Tureaud courageously led us toward equal justice and opportunity for all. He boldly challenged each obstacle in our way. He skillfully pried open the gates of segregation that separated us from each other and from our nation’s promise. A.P. Tureaud’s legal victories cleared the way toward reaching the promise of equal protection under the law. These civil rights triumphs encouraged others to lead us forward on the path that A.P. Tureaud made wider, more clear and more certain.

Mr. Tureaud was further honored when the Housing Authority of New Orleans’ (HANO) administrative offices in the 7th Ward were named for him. Mr. Tureaud served on HANO’s board of commissioners from 1966 to 1971.

This, of course, severely diminished the desirability of the properties on either side of the interstate. Suddenly an area that had been prosperous became quite undesirable. Homeowners moved, and finding their homes neither saleable nor rentable, eventually abandoned them. The irony of destroying this thriving business district in order to facilitate access to the suburbs is not lost on residents.

The 7th Ward today: Although not as prosperous as it once was, the neighborhood is identified with halls that each reflect a group of professionals, mechanics, skilled laborers or a benevolent society. They still use these halls for business and social functions. The Autocrat Club on St. Bernard Street is one of the liveliest, offering fish fries on Friday evenings and dances every Saturday night.

Information in this article gathered from the Greater New Orleans Center Community Data Center.

JOHN CLARK: SOCIAL ECOLOGIST

Professor John Clark from OPP and Vimeo.

New Orleans has been a disaster for a lot of people and when something really bad happens it’s more of a disaster for the same people. - John Clark

John Clark is Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University New Orleans and teaches in the Environmental Studies Program. His books include Max Stirner’s Egoism, The Philosophical Anarchism of William Godwin, The Anarchist Moment: Reflections on Culture, Nature and Power, Renewing the Earth: The Promise of Social Ecology (editor), Environmental Philosophy: From Animal Rights to Radical Ecology (four editions; coeditor), Elisée Reclus’ Voyage to New Orleans, Anarchy, Geography, Modernity: The Radical Social Thought of Elisée Reclus, in addition to several forthcoming works.

He has been active for many years in the Green Movement, an international movement for ecological sustainability, world peace, social justice and grassroots democracy. Despite his reservations about the perils of electoral politics, he is a member of the Greater New Orleans Green Party and the Green Party of Louisiana.

He also works in the bioregional movement and in ecological forestry, and is reforesting and reintroducing native species on an 83-acre tract along Bayou LaTerre in Hancock County, Miss. He organized Freeport Watch, an organization that monitors and works against ecocide and cultural genocide in West Papua (Western New Guinea) by Freeport McMoran, one of the world’s largest mining corporations. He is a member of the Education Workers Union of the Industrial Workers of the World.

PHAT & SWERVE AT THE HALF MOON

Phat & Swerve by the Half Moon from OPP and Vimeo.

My good friend Cat Malovic plays pool on occasion with Phat, Swerve and Jamal at their neighborhood bar, the Half Moon. Cat thought I should meet them and hear their story. They grew up in the St. Thomas project, a low-income housing project that was recently replaced by a mixed-income project, The River Garden.

The River Garden model, championed by local developer Pres Kabacoff, is being discussed in the redevelopment plans post-Katrina. Phat and Swerve live in the new River Garden project and are very positive about the change. As they say; "If this was the old St. Thomas projects, we might never be talkin' to y'all." Thanks Phat, Swerve, and Jamal for sharing your love and flavor!

HURRICANE KATRINA CAMPUS MEDIA PROJECT

This unique touring event provides deep insights into the ongoing struggles in New Orleans two years after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. The immersive project is a multimedia exploration of the human situation in New Orleans seen through the lens of a changing world of independent media production, video art, and primary source journalism. 

This is a unique project. It really gives a person a sense of optimism during a time when optimism is rather tough to sustain. -- Zola Munford, curator, Langston Hughes African-American Film Festival 

 THE EVENT INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING:

Video Art Screening: Katrina Ballads/ CNN mashup: Who Are You Angry At?

This video-art installation features a looping film edited by Farrah Hoffmire combining a performance of a piece from KATRINA BALLADS with the original CNN footage that inspired the composition. 

KATRINA BALLADS, which had its world premiere at the 2007 Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC, is a collection of songs inspired by the tragic events surrounding Hurricane Katrina.The work uses primary-source texts to paint a rich musical portrait of that devastating and telling week in September 2005.

Using the words of flood survivors, relief workers, politicians and celebrities, New York composer Ted Hearne creates a cutting-edge musical experience and a vivid look into America’s darkest hours. Performed by Yes is a World and Charleston’s New Music Collective, the music is rhythmic, theatrical, and American to the core, possessing an edgy, post-minimalist drive and a deep jazz influence. It is a moving performance, challenging us to remember and reflect upon our own history.

This portion of the campus event includes a daylong exhibit of a video-art installation of the project with interpretive materials and an on-site curator. 

Documentary Film Screening: Falling Together in New Orleans

SOLO JOURNALIST & DOCUMENTARY ARTIST Farrah Hoffmire was inspired by grassroots organizing and volunteer efforts in the weeks and months after Hurricane Katrina. She has traveled to New Orleans numerous times to create a solo work that is part art-vignette, part documentary film and part grass-roots journalism. In stark contrast to the failure and corruption stories that have dominated mass-media coverage, Falling Together introduces us to powerful people fighting to save lives, preserve culture and bring a sense of well-being back to New Orleans.

Conceived as an ongoing project that will follow events in New Orleans as they unfold over the next few years it also explores the ongoing complexities of rebuilding in areas of the city still severely damaged—such as the Lower 9th Ward. The film features music by Ani Difranco as well as top New Orleans musicians.

The film series has been featured at the:

• Oral History Association national conference (Little Rock, AR)
• Langston Hughes African American Film Festival (Seattle, WA)
• Lake Eden Arts Festival (Asheville, NC)
• Zeitgeist Film Series (Tulane University, New Orleans)
• ConvergeSouth Film Festival

This portion of the event includes a 75-minute screening of the film.

Documentary Film Screening: Social Dress - 730 Days After

Takashi Horisaki and a small team of volunteers were working 20-hour days in the 100-degree heat when OPP found them completing an art project in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans. Working on a largely abandoned block of the city, they worked with a mission to remind people of "what is still happening" in NOLA two years after the floods.

Takashi's ambitious media project involved the laborious process of covering the surface of the shotgun-style house in latex and cheesecloth to create a replica that itself could be "displaced" as a sculpture.

Falling Together in New Orleans: Vignette 4 looks at the process and motivations and then visits the artist and the sculpture at it's first home in New York City's Socrates Sculpture Park.

Takashi hopes to displace the sculpture across the U.S. and world to raise awareness about the still displaced people of New Orleans struggling to return home.

This portion of the tour presents a multi-media virtual tour of the sculpture with interpretive materials and on site curation.

Takashi's Blog

OPP Media Circus exhibit and discussion

Our relationship to mass media is immersive and constantly in flux. The Hurricane Katrina Media Tour uses art, a looping slide presentation, and during selected performances can include a presentation by Mitchell Davis and a group discussion with audiences at one of our screenings.

TROY'S MESSAGE TO BUSH, BLANCO AND NAGIN...BOOM!

Troy's Message to Nagin, Blanco, & Bush from OPP and Vimeo.

I was shocked to hear people’s short-sighted reaction to this footage of Troy. Though Troy has obviously knocked back a couple of cold ones, his message is clear and truly valuable.

Lyrical Terrorist

Lyrical Terrorist from OPP and Vimeo.

“Bnjahmn” is from the 7th Ward and finds communion at Mama D’s.

Music: Bob Marley’s Zimbabwe.

BOYSIE BOLLINGER: UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY

Boysie Bollinger: A Unique Opportunity from OPP and Vimeo.

Donald T. “Boysie” Bollinger is a member of the Bring New Orleans Back Commission, Mayor Nagin’s rebuilding committee, which is driven by the Urban Land Institute. 

Bollinger is also Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Bollinger Shipyards, Inc., a family-owned business established in 1946 by Boysie’s father. Bollinger Shipyards,  is a full-service marine construction and repair operation headquartered in Lockport, La., with 12 divisions in Louisiana, two divisions in Texas, and activities extending into the international market. Learn more about the Bring New Orleans Back Plan.

Music written and composed by Michael Houser (Door Harp album). Please visit: Houser Tribute.

Emergency Communities

emergency communities from OPP and Vimeo.

An out-take from Vignette 2 - The Art of Falling Together. Emergency Communities was started in St. Bernard Parrish. This footage is from late 2005.

EMERGENCY COMMUNITIES SUMMER 2007

 

Emergency Communities in the Lower 9 from OPP and Vimeo.

Emergency Communities is a non-profit organization that employs compassion and creativity to provide community-based disaster relief. Since Katrina, they have operated four relief sites, served over 300,000 meals and 25,000 residents of the Gulf. emergencycommunities.org

They run entirely on volunteers and donations. 

The above clip (running time aprox. 17 minutes) is from June 2007 from the Lower 9th Ward, New Orleans. Emergency Communities set up thier first relief center in St. Bernards Parish in Fall 2005 (featured in Vignette 2)

Thanks to Katie Fogle and the St. Albans Church Youth Group and Volunteers for footage that was inspiring to edit and produce. One of the most exciting things about solo journalism is letting the stories tell themselves and this is one that does that so easily. As Louise says in the video "it is hard to get people to understand, but we will see what happens...". Yes we will. Thanks to everyone who makes Emergency Communities come true.

SOCIAL DRESS NEW ORLEANS - 730 DAYS AFTER

Social Dress New Orleans - 730 Days After from OPP on Vimeo 

Takashi Horisaki and a small team of volunteers were working 20-hour days in the 100-degree heat when OPP found them completing an art project in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans. Working on a largely abandoned block of the city, they worked with a mission to remind people of "what is still happening" in NOLA two years after the floods.

Takashi's ambitious media project involved the laborious process of covering the surface of the shotgun-style house in latex and cheesecloth to create a replica that itself could be "displaced" as a sculpture.

Falling Together in New Orleans: Vignette 4 looks at the process and motivations and then visits the artist and the sculpture at it's first home in New York City's Socrates Sculpture Park.

Takashi hopes to displace the sculpture across the U.S. and world to raise awareness about the still displaced people of New Orleans struggling to return home.

The film features music by Kevn Kinney. (http://www.kevnkinney.com)

Touring with Ani DiFranco: Hurricane Katrina Media Tour

This was our first road trip with a GPS (thanks for the present mom!). Total virgins. And I have realized that a GPS is an all or nothing commitment. Otherwise you are constantly validating the robotic woman's voice with a map and all the benefit is lost. So you put your faith in the stars (literally) and just drive. I also never realized how unerving the the phrase "calculating route" can be (for non GPS'ers, that means you just took a wrong turn and are "off track" and the GPS is realigining its position on the globe. Typical suggestion: "do a legal u-turn as soon as possible". Our GPS is a Magellan, and we have developed a true love-hate relationsip with it, like any good technology. Hence the title of this blog post. Ok, enough GPS tallk...

We just finished three nights in a row with a great audience in Asheville last night. We had little in the way of expectations, but we have been able to personally talk to several hundred people about the grassroots media projects, added several dozen people to our email list, have given away a ton of cool stickers and cards spreading the OPP word and most importantly really connected with people on what we are doing. People get it!

One term that is definitely finding resonance with people is "Slow Media Movement", which is a descriptive we have been using for our projects. Bascially long term (over a year per project), self-funded, deep and immersive projects that stand in complete opposition to "fast news" of 24/7 TV culture. People seem to appreciate the perspective they can gain from a slower, more intentional approach and all of the HKMT projects do exatly that. 

We have met at least one person at every show who brings events to college campuses and was interested in the Hurricane Katrina Media Tour (HKMT). Our long term plan for the HKMT is to tour it around continually rotating in slow media and grassroots media projects. So the tour has provided the added benefit of finding people who 1) get ani difranco and 2) educate. What a powerful combination.

It has also been good to meet Buddy Wakefield (Ani's opening act and national slam poet champion - the dude is heavy...) and the other helpful people on the RBR team. Our booth is a pretty overwhelming set-up so it has been nice to de-code that for people and give them a better sense of what we are all about. Below is a quick collection of photos and thoughts.

Drive times / Cities visitied thus far:

Day One/Two: Charleston to Toronto - 21 hours. Wow! 

Day Three: Show in Toronto. Toronto Music Hall on Danforth St. A very cool venue with a great staff that made our first night go very smoothly.

We have experienced all three variations of the "booth set up" in our first three shows. Toronto falls into the "card table" category. Very nice for tight crowded spaces. We had a very busy night as the table was right next to the performance hall entrance and there was only one other tabler who was handing out newspapers for the Candian Green Party.

Most shows we can take turns and duck in for a few tunes. The soundboard was right inside the door next to our table. Ani talked about doing a "lobbying day" in Washington DC for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project. How as they visited the senators offices the aides would all ask "what did so and so say?" and that it was all quite high schoolish. That at the end of most meetings they would say "well, you know Senator so-and-so is not really that powerful, we can't really help". She told the crowd: "I was like, oh, Im sorry I thought they were a senator, that they got to vote on like laws and stuff. I must have the wrong city."

Day Four: Toronto to Boston - 9 hours Orpheum Theater in Boston, MA. Right across from the Boston Common, tucked away in an alley like it was forgotten by all the development around it. A very, very old school theatre that was good sized and intimate at the same time.

Setting up at the Orpeum. Here we had scenario 2 "sharing" - sharing a 8 foot table with another organization. There were four of us tabling: Amnesty International, Dennis Kucinich 2008 (Dennis was at the show) and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS.org).

The gentleman to Farrah's right (who we met later in the night and shared our table) is Jay Gustafaro a Gloucester fisherman who was a member of the Clamshell Alliance - the first organization in the United States to oppose commercial nuclear energy plants over thirty years ago. Jay is an amazing guy with with a real intention to what he is doing. He is involved in a project to create a book of photos from that period of activist history; so that it is not forgotten. A very important project. See the website for the project including the incredible photos. 

Day Five: Boston to Baltimore - 7 hours. Baltimore was the sweet hook up with tons of space behind the booth and a whole table to ourselves! The space was amazing (I can't believe I did not take a picture of the outside) -- a beautiful symphony hall. Met a ton of great people.

Farrah working it at the booth. She can flat pitch some slow media movement.  

Day six: Baltimore to Asheville - 9 hours. A nice corner set up. This was supposed to be a shared 8 foot table, but no one showed up to claim the other half so we floated after the doors open to a full table...nice! Again sharing some space with NIRS and some great folk who had worked on the Kucinich campaign. We had huge traffic at the table all night. 

Farrah talking about the projects. We are rotating playing the DVD's between Katrina Ballads, Social Dress New Orleans and Embedded Artist (Post Katrina Portraits). People are digging all the projects and the media circus give aways. When we have electricity we can plug in speakers (Baltimore, Asheville only so far).

Day Seven: A day off, we just have to get to Atlanta by midnight for the show tomorrow. 

-Posted by Mitchell

Farrah& Buddy Wakefield (poet extraordinaire) sporting an OPP Media Circus T!

Day 8: Atlanta - Our final show before we pass it off to Marcus & Amanda

We made it to Atlanta delirious from travel & thankful for the interesting experience of being on tour with Ani DiFranco & Buddy Wakefield. Our good friends, Beth & Joe came to the ATL show to pick up the tour materials and pass pass them off to Marcus & Amanda who finished the tour off in Durham, DC & NYC so that we could get to our documentary shoot in Costa Rica the next day! Thank you Beth, Joe, Marcus, & Amanda!!!

Kayesha (gets down with OPP) working the Amnesty Int. petitions!

Amanda preparing for the crowd in Durham

Day 10: Marcus and Amanda pick it up in Durham

Day 12: Washington, DC 

Day 14: Final Show in NYC 

Thank you Righteous Babe Records for the opportunity to connect with your loyal & intelligent fans. We met so many wonderful folk who appreciate our work, thanks & peace.