Paul Chan spoke in a panel at MoMA last night about Waiting for Godot in New Orleans, which was staged in the Lower Ninth Ward in November 2007. Other panelists were Robert Lynn Green, a life-long Lower Ninth resident, Katrina survivor (he lost his mother and granddaughter), and neighborhood ambassador for Chan's project; Greta Gladney, Executive Director of the Renaissance Project, a nonprofit committed to quality-of-life in New Orleans; and Christopher McElroen, the director. Kathy Halbreich of MoMA moderated.
I must be relating all these facts because there's so little I can write to convey the human and humane power of their conversation. Green's everyday eloquence (wearing socks with flip-flops with his suit), Gladney's professionalism just barely and not always holding back a well of high emotion (her family home is in the Lower Ninth), McElroen's pointed sensitivity to place and people, and Chan's profound intelligence (and humor) (and absence of ego) (and gift for articulating his thoughts) made for a bittersweet, poignant coming-together that had me holding my breath and holding back tears (not so successfully).
I've been thinking about the pull of geography, and how bird-like many of us are in our magnetic draw to a place and what it holds. For Green and Gladney, Katrina was an unfathomable devastation of their place.
Paul Chan's statement about the project is well worth reading. The power of art to bring awareness and compassion and to effect change doesn't get better than this.
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