Moved to action by the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans artist Jana Napoli collected hundreds of drawers from the flooded and abandoned neighborhoods in the days and months that followed.

In this site-specific installation, the drawers sit upright along a 230 foot long platform, which spans the length of Liberty Street Bridge – standing like empty luggage without their passengers and flowing like a levee, broken in places. Beneath the drawers, placed in intervals along the platform, moving-message LED signs silently repeat the words of the people who have parted with these drawers.  Their words reminisce and mourn:

“I thought New Orleans would be a good place to go for rain and history, and it was.” . . .  . “Having to throw your furniture out in front of your house -- your life is sort of taken from you and sort of dumped out in your front yard.” . . .  . “New Orleans was here before America was here and we are a part of America.”  

www.floodwall.org
MP3 interview with artist Jana Napoli

Press
New York Times
Associated Press

Co-presented by Arts World Financial Center
Floodwall’s New York exhibit is designed by Whirlwind Creative
Interview produced by Whirlwind Creative

Partners & Donors
Anonymous
Lyndon & Jeannine Sherman Barrios
The Borenstein Family
Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans
Caribe Cultural Foundation
Oral History Association's Emergency Crisis Oral History Research Fund
Environmental Restoration & Cleaning
Logical Things, Inc.
Oreck Corporation
Patrice Powell
Pinkley, Inc.
Robert and Melissa Soros
Monica Stevenson Photography
The T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History
Shirley Thompson Editorial
University of New Orleans
Young Aspirations/Young Artists, Inc. (YA/YA)
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts