Healing from Katrina

A drawing done by a child at Renaissance Village outside of Baker Louisiana. Image taken from katrinaexhibit.org

After Katrina mental trauma was rampant. This lowered moral across the board and made the physical recovery more difficult. A fairly new practice, art therapy, was one of the most commonly used technique to help children heal from Hurricane Katrina.

At a trailer park in Baker, Louisiana, displaced families were being temporarily housed and art therapists made regular visits. Near the trailer park there was a community gathering spot called ‘Renaissance Village’ where the art therapists would conduct activities. The children were told to make two drawings each, and these drawings would be displayed by the New Orleans Museum of Art in an exhibit called “Katrina Through the Eyes of the Children”. The art therapists quickly noticed that there were indicators of trauma in the drawings. When the children drew a house it was no longer a square for the base and a triangular roof on top. As seen in the image above, the house they would draw had a triangular shape. Therapists deduced that the children were indicating that the roof was the perceived place of safety instead of the entire house. This was a subconscious pattern being repeated by many children of all ages. It is a clear example of how art therapy can be used to identify a problem and then the healing process can begin.

While art therapists worked with some adults, their main focus was the children affected by the natural disaster. The culture as a whole also had to recover, and as New Orleans had a reputation for being a patron of the arts, and therefore nourishing the arts was a huge step in healing. Public art works and a financial support of the arts became important. This allowed older generations to heal from the traumatic natural disaster and all events that followed.

The art generated at this time almost always had something to do with Katrina. That was what was on everyone’s mind, and the reminders of Katrina were impossible to get away from. Especially if you were living in New Orleans. In an effort to help local artists back on their feet, the Joan Mitchell Foundation purchased the historic House on Bayou Road as a studio space. Its location allowed art to filter directly back into the community.

Sculpture by Rontherin Ratliff 'Things That Float' created in 2012. Image taken from Ratliff's personal website www.rontherin.com

There were many art pieces created that used ‘found items’ to create art works. For example, Rontherin Ratliff a former resident of the 9th ward of New Orleans created a sculpture called ‘Things That Float’. His sculpture used discarded building materials and trashed family photographs to depict the loss associated with Katrina. My interpretation of this art work is influenced by Ratliff’s story about going to the halfway submerged family home and finding items floating everywhere. He said that the one thing that remained submerged, was his family photographs. My interpretation of this is that the heaviest loss was the loss of the memories associated with his home. The memories will remain submerged while all the material goods float to the surface. It’s a very powerful piece.

An art biennial called Prospect (P.1) was held in 2008 and it kick-started the art scene of New Orleans today. This was important because the media coverage of this art exhibition was some of the first positive stories to come out of New Orleans. This helped increase moral and city-wide pride.

To this day New Orleans and the surrounding areas are still recovering from the long-term effects of Hurricane Katrina. The city will never completely recover and will never be the same as it's pre-Katrina self, but it is clear that the city and its people have healed significantly through art.

Works Cited:

Dewan, Shaila. “Art Therapy.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 17 Sept. 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/arts/design/17ther.html.

Kaplan, Isaac. “10 Years After Katrina, How Art Has Helped New Orleans Rebuild.” 11 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy, Artsy, 17 Aug. 2015, www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-10-years-after-katrina-art-helped-new-orleans-rebuild.

King, Morgana, and Anne Canzonetti. “New Orleans After Katrina: Public Art Amid Natural Disaster.” Americans for the Arts, Sept. 2017, www.americansforthearts.org/by-program/reports-and-data/legislation-policy/naappd/new-orleans-after-katrina-public-art-amid-natural-disaster.

“Art By Displaced Children at Renaissance Village.” Katrina - Through The Eyes of Children, Community Initiatives Foundation, 2009, www.katrinaexhibit.org/index.htm.