Conversations
1984, New Orleans, LA
In 1984, three visual artists began meeting with three poets. Initial discussions concerned characteristics in the work of the visual artists that revealed a shared sensibility with Southern literature in general and New Orleans writers in particular. The VESTIGES Project developed from this series of discussions into a forum for writers and visual artists to investigate the interconnection of image and text, and ultimately, to produce collaborative works that would transcend exclusively visual or verbal modes of communication and perception.
The writers and artists involved were distinguished by certain related attributes in their work: in both content and process, the use of layering, salvaging, or recycling of "vestiges", whether these be remnants, relics, rituals, memories, or myths; and a common sense of place, characterized by the hazy distinction between fiction and truth, facade and reality, past and present, that is peculiar to New Orleans.
A working definition of "vestiges" has evolved that is referential to New Orleans--a vestige in itself. Simply put, by vestiges project members mean: tangible traces of things past.
Participants: Andrei Codrescu, Jan Gilbert, Debra Howell, Richard Katrovas, Carolyn Maisel, Kristen Struebing-Beazley
conversations salvagedmemories contemporarymemorials bookworks thesubjectiswar
valorizationoftheanonymous worksinprogress journeysanddestinations thinktank enactments