Visual Revisionism in Post-Katrina Art
Author:
Nicholas Lalla
Degree Date:
May, 2012
Committee Chairperson:
Riche D Richardson
Call Number:
Thesis DT 3.5 2012 L357
Description:
104 leaves ; 29 cm
Abstract:
Emerging from the destruction and displacement Hurricane Katrina precipitated is an interdisciplinary corpus of artistic and cultural expression that sheds light on a disaster that changed the world. This thesis explores the ways in which a select group of arts projects revise Katrina's problematic and media-constructed narrative. Kara Walker's visual art book, After the Deluge, Josh Neufeld's graphic novel, A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, HBO's television series, Treme, and Paul Chan's Waiting for Godot in New Orleans each provide humanizing perspectives on the black communities that Katrina disproportionately affected. In so doing, I argue, these projects create a new visual way of reading and theorizing Katrina that deconstructs the normative understanding of the hurricane as a racial and media spectacle. My thesis analyzes this new visual literacy and its critical value in the post-Katrina world.