Artist Statement -- new orleans

August 29, 2005 was a day none of us will forget.

Me? I was sitting in Fratesi’s Grocery in Leland, Mississippi when I first caught a glimpse of the images from New Orleans. CNN was showing live footage of the city and all I could think about was my wife’s family. I knew they were sitting in my den back home, huddled together in front of the television, desperately trying to get any information they could about their homes, friends, family—information about their LIVES.

The weeks following Katrina were complete chaos, but slowly the city is pulling itself up by the bootstraps. I’ve watched my family and friends work tirelessly to get life back to the way they once knew it—which of course they never will. But that doesn’t necessarily mean things won’t be—or aren’t already—better than they were pre-Katrina. It just means they will be different. Some things the same. Some things worse. Some things better. And that is the life we all live. Nothing stays the same. Change is inevitable.

It took me a while to figure out how I wanted to approach all of this—or even if I wanted to try. Early on my mother-in-law began asking me when I was going to photograph New Orleans. We would be visiting, looking at magazines and books documenting the hurricane, and she would always look at me and say ‘When are you going to do this?’ And honestly, it was intimidating for me. Intimidating because of the magnitude of the hurricane itself, intimidating because of the wealth of wonderful pictures already out there, intimidating because I’m not a native—what right did I have to insert myself into this story?

But over the last two years I realized there seems to be a side to all of this that we just don’t hear enough about. Sure, we all know about the horrible conditions, the Superdome, the death, political in-fighting, blame, blame, blame and more blame. It saddens me when I hear people say the citizens of New Orleans got what they deserved. What many people fail to realize is that there is so much good going on in New Orleans right now—so much faith. Faith that the city will one day return to her former beautiful self, faith that neighbors will come home, faith that the levees will not fail them again. Faith that everyone's hard work will resurrect some semblance of life as they once knew it. I know this because I see my family living it everyday.

So these images are created to illustrate—in a somewhat abstract manner—what I’ve observed from my friends and family the last 24 months. It is not meant to be a literal depiction, and it definitely is not meant to be objective. My attempt is to show the range of emotions I’ve seen them go through - are still going through – because of the upheaval in their lives and the strong contrast of living in the Crescent City right now. I only ask that as you view these images, you keep in mind your family, your friends, and your home. And think about what you would do, and how you would hope people would respond, if this were to happen to you.

And when you ponder this, know that you can’t help but be inserted into this story. Because life is not easy. It’s not fair. It takes great strength and discipline to march on. It takes faith—a tremendous amount of faith. But it can be oh, so wonderful even when it seems to be its most treacherous.

Whether you were directly affected by Hurricane Katrina or not, you have a link to the city of New Orleans. What we see in south Louisiana is an extreme example of what every one of us will go through at some point. Without the bad there is no good. Without fear there is no faith. Without hate there is no love. Yes, these images are from New Orleans, but they could have been created anywhere.


~Will H. Jacks