Birmingham Native And Curator John Fields Recalls His Hurricane Katrina Experience
It has been 10 years since Hurricane Katrina. John Fields, curator at the Abroms-Engel Institute of Visual Arts and Birmingham native, lived in New Orleans when the disaster hit. He talked to WBHM’s Gina Yu about his experience and the way it changed his life and art.
Storm and Silence
Fields moved to New Orleans for a graduate art program at the University of New Orleans, about a year before Hurricane Katrina hit the city.
Before the hurricane hit, he was able to evacuate safely to Birmingham. After two or three days, Fields returned to New Orleans and spent a couple of days driving around.
“You don’t realize how much noise there is in the background of a city, you sort of take that for granted,” he said. “Coming out of the car, it was almost like you’re holding your hands over your ears. It was the definition of a deafening silence.”
Everything was covered in hues of brown, Fields described. “It was almost like being in a black-and-white film, because all of the color had been completely drained from the landscape and all of the sound completely removed.”
Liberation in Losing Everything
“The process of losing everything was quite liberating,” he said. As an artist, Fields found interest in the human reactions to the disaster, changing the nature of his work post-Katrina. In the flooding and damage, he lost all of the undergraduate work that was with him, along with the entire first year of graduate school’s art. “Having that clean slate really freed me up,” he said.
In the days following Katrina, Fields went around with his camera and asked strangers to make a “Katrina face,” with no instructions or elaborations as to what that meant. Instead of taking a photo of the “face,” he captured the face the people made in between thinking about what a “Katrina face” looks like and actually doing it. The result was art that is vulnerable, unguarded and psychological of the stranger’s state-of-mind.
Fields thinks about all of the uncertainties of that time.
“The anxiety was so intense. People started to crack a little bit,” he said. “There’s that saying, ‘Ordinary people do terrible things when terrible things become ordinary.'”
10 Years Past, New Orleans Present
Fields doesn’t think about Katrina as much as he predicted he would. But he does visit New Orleans often. The city has a different vibe, he described.
“The one thing that saves New Orleans is the culture. [It’s] so amazing, and it’s so unique. There’s not another city on the planet like it. And the people who choose to live there are kind of incredible,” he said. “That’s what I think will always keep New Orleans weird and cool.”
Hear more about Fields’ post-Katrina art:
Supreme Court allows Trump to fire — for now — remaining Democrat on FTC
At issue is whether the president has the authority to dismiss the heads of those agencies that are protected by Congress.
Climate change is delaying peak fall foliage. Here’s what to expect this year
Leaves typically start to peak in northern states by early October, but projecting peak foliage isn't an exact science. Here are some things you can do to get the most out of fall's colors.
400 entertainers co-sign ACLU letter supporting Jimmy Kimmel
Celebrities including Pedro Pascal and Selena Gomez wrote: "Our government has resorted to threatening the livelihoods of journalists, talk show hosts, artists, creatives and entertainers."
Man charged with attempted assassination of Trump rests own case
Ryan Routh, who is accused in the attempted assassination of Donald Trump on his golf course last year, called three witnesses and rested his defense after only a few hours of testimony on Monday.
Elizabeth Gilbert opens up about sex, drugs and codependency in a new memoir
The Eat, Pray, Love author discusses her love affair with her best friend, which she says was life-changing but also marked by addiction and heartbreak. Gilbert's memoir is All the Way to the River.
‘The Lowdown’ isn’t just a good show. It’s a good hang
Ethan Hawke plays a bookstore owner who moonlights as a muckraking reporter in Tulsa, Okla. Though The Lowdown occasionally meanders or misfires, every episode of the FX series is bracingly alive.
