COMMUNITY ART IN THE POST-DISASTER LANDSCAPES OF TODAY

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Site #20 "Today" Maxime Demetrio/Naftali Rutter: Charbonnet b'w Burgundy and Dauphine, Holy Cross

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"The intention of the "Today" Project, which will consist of two installations in New York and New Orleans, is to express love and hope, and forge a bond between the people who call each city home. Both installations are designed to create a visual portal where two communities can metaphorically gaze into each other's worlds.

"Today" in New Orleans is a mixed media mural comprised of a wheat-paste print of two doors and stoops of NYC brownstones. This acts as a symbol of life in Brooklyn. The word "enter" is spray painted around and on the wheat-paste mural. This piece was installed in the Holy Cross area of the Lower 9th Ward. Visiting the city (we live in New York) and connecting with the people who live there has been unforgettable and influential. The process of being sensitive to the site, gaining permission, and including folks in the process took the graffitti, which is generally considered "art vandalism", to a deeper level.

The Brooklyn sister piece will be a similar wheat-paste and graffitti mural of a Lower 9th Ward stoop leading to an absent house - a symbol of the continuing struggle in New Orleans." Maxime Demetrio