MID North Coast artist Julie Byers will open her new exhibition “Call and Response” at Bellingen’s Nexus Community Gallery on Sunday 26 April, between noon and 2pm.
A collage and poetry exhibition, it reflects on Hurricane Katrina, 20 years after the disaster devastated New Orleans and the US Gulf Coast.
The body of work is shaped by Byers’ personal connection to the event.
On 29 August 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the US Gulf Coast, inundating New Orleans after catastrophic levee failures.
More than 1,800 people lost their lives and hundreds of thousands were displaced.
Ms Byers was in New Orleans as part of a 43-member Australian and New Zealand community choir.
She left the city ahead of the storm.
“Call and Response is a series of collage works developed two decades on from my narrow escape from New Orleans,” she said.
“Under the guidance of choirmaster Tony Backhouse, we travelled to the United States to explore the heart and soul of gospel music country.
“Our repertoire, including The Storm Is Passing Over, Only a Prayer Away and Be Thankful, became an eerie portent of what was to come.
“We escaped by taxi convoy, organised by a local driver named BJ, and found safety in Memphis with hundreds of other evacuees.
“From there, we watched as the city drowned and help failed to come.”
Each collage is anchored by music and is accompanied by a haibun (descriptive prose capturing the specific memory) that carries the visual narrative into the written word.
Together, image and text trace the journey from escape to aftermath, drawing on altered photographs, public-domain imagery, found text, acrylic ink and paint across paper, board and canvas.
Ms Byers said the series reflects on the suffering unleashed by Katrina, but also on wider questions it exposed: how race, inequality and vulnerability shape who is protected, who is left waiting, and who bears the greatest burden in disasters.
The exhibition continues daily from 10am to 4pm until 21 May.
By Andrea FERRARI
You can help your local paper.
Make a small once-off, or (if you can) a regular donation.
We are an independent family owned business and our newspapers are free to collect and our news stories are free online.
Help support us into the future.