the VESTIGES Project, TANK DRAMA. Deliberations from the wet grave.

the VESTIGES Project:
Tank Drama: Deliberations from The Wet Grave

July 6, 2013 – September 22, 2013
Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans

Artists working in a multiplicity of art forms — theater, writing, visual art, film, music, dance — are brought together under the umbrella of The VESTIGES Project to present their work in the CAC Lupin Foundation Gallery, along with scheduled events in its Spun Cafe, Freeport-McMoRan Theater, and additional off-site venues. This potent representation of creative, collaborative networks documenting, remembering, and re-visioning post-Katrina New Orleans provides a glimpse into the collective, ongoing effort to think through the past and envision the future of New Orleans. This collection is posed as an exemplar for engaging in a wider global dialogue.

These greatly varied works have evolved over the course of the past eight years, many winding their way through several iterations in different locales, near and far. The artists and works often traveled directly to those cities with a high concentration of New Orleanians in diaspora, such as Houston and Atlanta. Other times they reached out to people and places with their own parallel coastal experiences and concerns. Some works passionately address issues such as public health, global warming, racism, and economic inequities, while others gently touch upon modes of peaceful escape, meanderings of memento mori, and metaphors/tools for intimate community healing and rebuilding.

The writers, artists, performers, activists and others whose works are a part of Tank Drama are also creators of, and participants in, projects and networks that have arisen in partnership with or have co-existed alongside the VESTIGES: Think Tank collaboration since it began in 2006.

Tank Drama Events in conjunction with the exhibition:

Literally Speaking: Tank Drama
September 21, 2013
Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans

Featured writers:
Shelton “Shakespear” Alexander
Adam Falik
Sherral Kahey
Jan Villarrubia
Moderated by Kevin J. McCaffrey

Memoirs of the Sistahood–Chapter 4: Sacred Trails
August 3, 2013
Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans

Starring Babette Beaullieu, Becky Beaullieu Valls, Helen Gillet, & Deborah Schildt

When Armageddon Came to Town, A Robert Adanto Film (work in progress)
September 7, 2013
Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans

Film screening and introduction of ShelterBox USA by Ken Thompson

Exhibition Curator: Jan Gilbert

Exhibition Designer: Yuka Petz

Participants include: Babette Beaullieu, Bureau of Change (Margot Herster, Colin Roberson, Amanda Bourgeois), Rondell Crier, Lisette deBoisblanc, e2 (Elizabeth Kleinveld, E Paul Julien), Jan Gilbert, Debra Howell, Krista Jurisich, Jana Napoli, Kathy Randels, Rontherin Ratliff, Kristen Struebing-Beazley, Michele White, Goat in the Road

conversations salvagedmemories contemporarymemorials bookworks thesubjectiswar
valorizationoftheanonymous worksinprogress journeysanddestinations thinktank enactments lossritualrelic

© 2008 The Vestiges Project.
www.thevestigesproject.org