For Immediate Release:

Contact: Debbie McNulty

713.523.9530 or debbie@artleaguehouston.org

Photos and complete biographies available on request

Houston, TX – Art League Houston is pleased to announce the opening of its first micro exhibit, Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston: Who We Are, an installation of photographs and stories featuring Houston-based evacuees and survivors of the hurricanes, with photographs by Alice McNamara-- April 30 – June 15, 2007. The opening reception is May 8, 2007, 6-8 p.m., beginning with a talk by Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston Project co-directors Pat Jasper and Carl Lindahl, and photographer Alice McNamara at 6 p.m. Music will be provided by Al “Carnival Time” Johnson, a native of New Orleans, who is one of the Houston-based survivors featured in the show.

Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston: Who We Are is part of a much larger documentary project, Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston (SKRH): A Survivor-Centered Storytelling and Documentation Project, initiated by folklorists Carl Lindahl and Pat Jasper in partnership with Texas Commission on the Arts, the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, the University of Houston and the American Folklore Society. Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston is the first large-scale project, anywhere, in which the survivors of a major disaster have taken the lead in its documentation. The project’s goal is to voice, as intimately as possible, the experiences and reflections of those displaced to Houston by the two major hurricanes that pounded the Gulf Coast in August and September of 2005. The stories and accompanying photographs will ultimately be housed at The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and the University of Houston.

Carl Lindahl, Martha Gano Houston Research Professor of English at the University of Houston, is a Fellow of the American Folklore Society and an internationally recognized authority on medieval folklore, folktales and legends, festivals and celebration, and folklore fieldwork. His most recent book is American Folktales from the Collections of Library of Congress. Lindahl is the Co-Director of Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston .

Pat Jasper is an award-winning public folklorist, curator and arts administrator with over 25 years of experience in the field. Jasper is the founder and former Director of Texas Folklife Resources, the only organization of its kind devoted solely to the promotion and preservation of Texas folk arts and folklife. She joined Lindahl as co-director of the Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston project in September of 2005.

More than a quarter of a million people evacuated to Houston as a result of hurricanes Rita and Katrina. According to a 2006 city estimate, more than 100,000 Hurricane Katrina and Rita evacuees continue to live in Houston, more than any other city in the United States. Many of those who remain do so because their homes and neighborhoods were destroyed beyond repair, rebuilding has been slow, or they cannot afford the cost of a new home. Others remain because many social service institutions, including hospitals, schools and colleges, were also destroyed in the deluge and have yet to be replaced. And yet others stay in Houston because of family and friends, or because there are others in the city who share their languages and cultural traditions.

When the evacuees began arriving in Houston in late August 2005, the city generously welcomed them with open arms. Now rather than offering compassion and sharing, public reaction is at times one of distress and anger, in part fueled by the media’s preoccupation with a disproportionately small percentage of evacuees. While some media reports had too often depicted survivors as criminals or at best victims, the voices of the survivors themselves have instead portrayed selfless friends, compassionate strangers, loving neighbors, and above all heroes.

Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston gives powerful expression to survivors of both hurricanes through portraits and voices that are both intimate and universally understood. Because Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston is a survivor-centered storytelling project, it provides the opportunity for survivors to tell and record their stories on their own terms. Giving voice to their own experiences, memories and interpretations, survivors have control over how they are portrayed, how these historic events are understood now and in the future, and how they introduce themselves to their new neighbors in Houston, Texas. One survivor participant sums up the intent of the project perfectly, “We are not criminals, fools or deadbeats. We have honor, respect, and pride, in others and in ourselves. We don’t want people either to scorn or pity us. We want them to see us.”

Although the principal goal of the project is to record survivors’ memories of their old neighborhoods and of disaster, Lindahl and Jasper hope it will help the Houston evacuee community. “There is going to be an enormous component of social healing in this,” Jasper says. “Social healing for the evacuees, but also social healing for the Houstonians who opened their homes to them.”

In addition to helping voice survivor stories, Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston involves training and compensation for the work involved. Since September 2005, more than 40 individuals have trained at four SKRH field schools, produced in collaboration with the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, FotoFest’s Literacy Through Photography Program, and the Mental Health Association of Greater Houston. At the schools, survivors have learned essential documentary skills including photography, the use of recording equipment, how to conduct, log and transcribe interviews, the ethical and emotional factors associated with their interviews, and mental health awareness. Since the completion of training, more than 300 interviews have been conducted in English, Garifuna, Spanish and Vietnamese. Lindahl and Jasper expect to collect at least 1,000 interviews by project’s end.

The Art League Houston’s exhibition photographs for Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston: Who We Are, were taken by Alice McNamara, a native Houstonian who is herself a survivor of Hurricane Katrina, and was one of the hundreds of thousands of people who evacuated to Houston in the aftermath of the storm. McNamara first participated in SKRH as an interviewer and is now photographing many of the individuals who have told their story through the project.

The installation photographs are printed large-scale on canvas and accompanied by the recorded voices of the individuals portrayed. McNamara has been passionate about photography all her life. In working on this project, her goal was not to take dramatic photographs of the survivors. “My intention is that each image, along with the audio, will capture an essence, allow us to study someone and perhaps even walk a moment in their shoes. I hope that we were able to do that in this installation, because it’s a powerful and beautiful thing to stop, listen, and get to know someone; especially someone you might not normally approach. The SKRH project and this installation haven’t always been easy for me, but they’ve been an incredible gift.”

Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston: Who We Are is funded in part by the Houston Endowment, Inc., the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Houston Arts Alliance. .The project itself enjoys support from the previously-listed funders as well as the American Folklore Society, the Douglas County School District, Douglas County Colorado and the United Way of the Texas Gulf Coast. Special thanks are also extended to The Orange Show Center for Visionary Art for their help with this exhibit.

Art League Houston programming is made possible through the estate of William G. Daugherty, The Houston Endowment, Inc., City of Houston through the Cultural Arts Council of Houston and Harris County, Joan Hohlt & J. Roger Wich, Kevin & Laurie Foxx,  Art Colony Association/ Bayou City Art Festivals, The American-Scandinavian Foundation, Drew Baird, Becker Family Foundation,  the Ann Bengtson Memorial Fund, Norman & Kelly Bering, Jack & Annis Bowen Foundation, Brad & Leslie Bucher, Marv & Billie Chasen, Moriah & Rod Crosby, Darrell & Peggy Delahoussaye, Ray C. Fish Foundation, Hugh & Berthica Fitzsimons, Kat Gallagher, Alice C. Boyd Gano, Courtney Glasscock, Oliver & Nancy Goldesberry, Nick & Candice Goodwin, Rob Greenstein, James & Ann Harithas, International Bank of Commerce,  Kinder Foundation, Susan Magnani, Mark & Gretchen Mazziotti, McCoy Workplace Solutions, John P. McGovern Foundation,  Betty Moody & Bill Steffy, National MS Society Lone Star Chapter, Mark Nitcholas, Don & Crystal Owens, Allan & Peggy Port, Royal Norwegian Consulate General, Mike Rudelson, Louisa Stude Sarofim, Fred & Wendy Schiller, Tahamia Spain, Steve & Susie Streller, Texas Art Supply, Texas Commission on the Arts, Top Drawer Lingerie, Jim & Beth Wiggins, Nina & Michael Zilkha, our sponsors, members and volunteers.

Art League Houston 1953 Montrose Houston Texas 77006

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