Crisis Connection

John Vettese sees what develops: Christina Molieri's "The Lower Nine"

by John Vettese

	print	email	reply	rss feed

Published: Oct 20, 2010

(CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

"I wanted people to be able to smell the mold. I wanted them to feel the shell shock I felt."

Christina Molieri stands in the warm lobby of the William Way Community Center, surrounded by stark images of destruction in pointed silver gelatin prints. "The Lower Nine: A Post-Katrina Odyssey" (through Oct. 31) documents the Philly photographer's time volunteering with Common Ground, a relief organization based in the section of New Orleans hit hardest by the hurricane five years ago.

One image shows a building reduced to a splintery shack; it sits down the road from the I-10 overpass where helicopters swooped in and recovered trapped residents. Another depicts a rusted lock box; when her work crew popped it open, they found a house deed and an old coin collection. Nearby hangs a photo of recovered baby pictures from a christening.

"Water preserves the strangest things," Molieri recalls, adding that a member of her team uncovered the Aug. 28, 2005, edition of the Times-Picayune. Headline: "Katrina Takes Aim."

The devastation looks intense, but the images were taken nearly a year and a half after Katrina made landfall. Molieri volunteered in March of 2007 while enrolled at Bryn Mawr College. "We were discussing all these issues about social justice, all this theory," she says. "And I thought, 'What am I doing? I'm in a classroom.'"

Upon arrival, the pace of recovery shocked her. The French Quarter seemed to have bounced back by comparison; the Lower Ninth Ward still "looked like Beirut."

Molieri laughs when I use the term "rebuilding effort." "We weren't rebuilding anything," she says. "At that point, we were still tearing things down."

For the most part, the first suite of images focuses on those structures. An overgrown backyard encroaches on a collapsing shed. Floor joists crackle. Piles of books and belongings slope off a mattress. In a stunning backlit vertical shot, Molieri's team drags debris from a basement that's been reduced to barely stable wooden frames. Absent from this section of the exhibit, for the most part, are people.

Molieri says that, along with nonprofit groups, Katrina attracted plenty of gawkers — filmmakers and magazine photographers studying the natural disaster with cold detachment.

"That's not why I went down," she says. "I was working alongside people who were living this nightmare — I didn't want to be disrespectful."

But total restraint proved difficult. Molieri's camera began to join her on daily expeditions. At first, as reflected in the bleak images on the west wall of William Way, it was trained solely on her work. Move to the opposite side of the room, and we see a spark of life. After staying in the Lower Ninth for a week, Molieri encountered a traditional second line brass band parading through the neighborhood, and feverishly shot what she saw. The scene started off slow and mournful, she recalls, before turning into a celebration. You can see the photographer's excitement in the blurry exposure and unsteady framing of some shots; you can see the residents' determination in the weathered faces captured by the better images.

The final section of "The Lower Nine" acts as a time capsule of sorts: Rather than studying buildings, it looks at objects left exactly as they were on Aug. 29, 2005. A suitcase sits packed and ready to go; a board game lays underneath it. A shirt still hangs on a hanger, waiting to be pressed. It feels archaeological, but is also evidence of an ongoing crisis that has become a historical footnote rather than a focal point.

Molieri says that combing through her contact sheets while preparing for the exhibit brought back both the reality of what happened, and the discomforting sensation she felt upon arriving in New Orleans. "You don't think about it every day, it's not as pressing," she says. "We've moved on. But there are still tens of thousands of blighted houses; there are still children who have not returned to school."

(j_vettese@citypaper.net)

The Puzzler
GenderEDGE
Neighborhood 3
The Early Bird
Kaleidoscope
Safety Dance
Burn After Reading
Oleanna
Narcissus in the Studio
Paul Taylor
Sharp Dance Co.
Peoplehood Parade & Pageant