Thursday, May 28, 2009

Shrines in New Orleans








These roadside shrines, to murder, violence, and Hurricane Katrina victims, I found while scouting sites for this summer's artist-in-residency I will be doing for the JCC Maccabi Artsfest. Most were in the devastated Lower Ninth Ward; one was downtown.

They are immediately recognizable as spontaneous memorials. I find it interesting that they do not look like the shrines I find around Washington DC. Surprisingly for New Orleans, a city famed for its vivid and colorful expressions, the shrines I encountered were far more subdued than DC's cascading masses of teddy-bears, liquor bottles, T-shirts, flowers, balloons, written notes and other memorabilia.

see also:
http://dcshrines.blogspot.com

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