Do You Know What It Means?

On a recent trip to New Orleans, members from the SVA community held an event to collect photographs from the people of St. Bernard Parish.

It was so incredible to sit down with these people who brought in their waterlogged wedding albums and baby pictures. Often they were the only person of all their relatives who was able to salvage any photos of the family. We listened to their stories of how they've been living in FEMA trailers for a year and how all their family has left and how they're trying to decide if they should go too. In some cases, the husband wants to stay and the wife wants to go. Then what? What do you do when you're the only person left on your disheveled street and you're living in a trailer in front of your roofless house that you're still paying a mortgage on? Most of the people we talked to had been in N.O. for generations. They brought in pictures of their parents in the French Quarter in the 1940's and pictures of big Church Picnics and Annual Neighborhood Easter egg hunts that will never happen the same way again. The devastation is overwhelming.

Despite everything these people have been through, they are so warm, welcoming and helpful. The southern hospitality hits you moments after you get off the plane. A man who teaches at the college in St. Bernard took 3 hours out of his day to give us what he called his "Disaster tour", showing us what was left of his neighborhood. We talked to his neighbor who had come back for the day to her destroyed house to see what she could do with the $40K she received from the government to repair it (not much). She and her husband (who couldn't handle coming back to even see the house) had been living with her son's family in a nearby state for the last year. Despite all the broken windows, missing front door, and a vacant block...she was mowing her lawn and telling us how she couldn't wait for the Saints game.

The people we met were incredible- their will to restore their community is unbelievable. Here are a couple photos from this trip:

Do You Know What it Means is a collaborative project conceived by members of the staff, alumni and chair of the MFA Photography, Video and Related Media department at the School of Visual Arts in New York. They have teamed up with a number of organizations, including many in New Orleans, to unite their expertise in sociology, ethnology, history, photography and archival technology.

The School of Visual Arts has donated equipment and administrative support to launch this project and SVA's Alumni Society is serving as fiscal manager; George Mason University's Center for History and New Media is storing and archiving the collection; The Historic New Orleans Collection is furnishing technology consultation, archiving and preservation capabilities and office and exhibition space; in concert with anthropologist Dr. Joyce Jackson, The Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve is providing anthropological and historical research on the Fazendeville group; and the University of New Orleans is offering staff and student volunteers to help analyze gathered material.

Do You Know What it Means is loosely modeled after "Here is New York: A Democracy of Photographs", an exhibit of professional and amateur photographs taken during and around the World Trade Center tragedy. Charles Traub, co-founder of both projects and chair of the MFA Photography, Video and Related Media department at the School of Visual Arts, states, " Both projects aim to function as living memorials to restore our sense of equilibrium as a nation, as a city, and particularly as a community. We need to develop a new way of looking at and thinking about history."

Do You Know What it Means is a collaborative, educational effort designed to help the public better understand what life was like in New Orleans before the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster. Our mission is to collect the untold stories of the people of New Orleans by chronicling and preserving them in an accessible and public digital archive comprised of collected photographs, videos, family histories, interviews and other artifacts. The archive will result in a virtual representation of New Orleans that will in turn help bring a divided community back together.

Do You Know What it Means places an emphasis on what has been lost - from the objects that connect people between generations to the cultural and social fabric of everyday life - as a way of documenting and sharing the unique culture of New Orleans. Most important, the project and digital archive enable those whose lives were affected by this disaster to be proactive in rebuilding, preserving and sharing their family histories.

The first phase of this project focuses on the Fazendeville group, a small community from New Orleans that has been displaced twice in its history. The first time was in 1964 when the National Park Service obtained their land, located directly on the Chalmette battlefield of the Battle of New Orleans. Some of the families in the group relocated to the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, which was eventually severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina and remains largely uninhabitable today.

In subsequent phases of this project, other groups and geographic areas of New Orleans will be identified and chronicled to demonstrate the city's social, cultural and racial diversity.

Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans?

by Louis Armstrong

Do you know what it means to miss new orleans
And miss it each night and day
I know Im not wrong... this feelings gettin stronger
The longer, I stay away
Miss them moss covered vines...the tall sugar pines
Where mockin birds used to sing
And Id like to see that lazy mississippi...hurryin into spring

The moonlight on the bayou.......a creole tune.... that fills the air
I dream... about magnolias in bloom......and Im wishin I was there

Do you know what it means to miss new orleans
When thats where you left your heart
And theres one thing more...i miss the one I care for
More than I miss new orleans

(instrumental break)

The moonlight on the bayou.......a creole tune.... that fills the air
I dream... about magnolias in bloom......and Im wishin I was there

Do you know what it means to miss new orleans
When thats where you left your heart
And theres one thing more...i miss the one I care for
More.....more than I miss.......new orleans