Melancholy Sun: A Spoken Word Memorial to Hurricane Katrina

Описание: The audio collage is made from spliced and layered first-hand narrative accounts of people’s experiences dealing with Hurricane Katrina. It probes questions of narrative, identity and self-understanding, the intersections between history and memory, the motives behind and approaches to memorial, and the impacts that remembrance (or the lack of it) can have.

I encouraged each participant to explore their own memories of the storm with the question: "How do nostalgia and melancholy help us deal with traumatic and saddening memories?" Specifically, I sought to determine the extent to which those things affect individuals impacted by the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina. With this project, I wished to present melancholy not as a form of sadness, but rather as something infinitely more profound. By extension, I hoped to assert that melancholy and nostalgia are beneficial in dealing with the memories of our past.

I present it in hopes that it adequately commemorates and inventively amplifies the voice that Louisiana still has. I invite you to share and forward it as you see fit – to those directly affected by Hurricane Katrina and otherwise. After all, tragedy does not discriminate, mourning is universal, and no one is left unaffected.

My sincerest gratitude to those who lent their voices to this project:

Conner Allison
Seth Jacobs
Hannah Beal
Hunter Simonson
Jackson Mierl
Darryl Mierl
Bonnie Goeller
Keith Goeller
Sue Blundell

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Closed captioning is available for those to whom audio is inaccessible.