(via NEA Arts Magazine) )
We had an artist who came in one day crying-- I mean, literally crying-- that he had selected a house that was crumbling, and he was going to make a skin of it with latex and take that skin and reconstruct it as the skeleton of this house, the skin of this house. He went back to the [site] after he’d gotten all the materials. There was a big sign on it, saying, 'No trespassing. House will be torn down within 10 days.' So he came to us and said, 'What'll we do?'
So we had to convince the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that it was artwork. We would get a phone call at the end of every 10 days saying, 'Is it still art?' And we'd say, 'It's still art,' until it was finished. And then that skin went to Socrates Sculpture Park up in New York and was exhibited all of the summer of 2006, then came back here and was part of the first Prospect New Orleans Biennale. The house is now long gone, but it lives in memory in this skin.
[The artist] had gone to school here and came back after the storm….He borrowed a bike and just rode up and down all the streets until he found this one house that he wanted to turn into a work of art. And it turned out to be a beautiful piece of work."
—Mary Len Costa, Interim Director, Art Council of New Orleans
"Conceived and executed by the youthful Court 13 collective—who is also responsible for the award-winning short Death to the Tinman—Glory at Sea ups the ante of Ray Tinori’s stylish, invigorating work (here, Tintori steps into the role of Production Designer) by telling the story of a group of individuals struggling to survive in an apocalyptic post-Katrina New Orleans. Zeitlin’s vision of a dilapidated future feels strangely archaic, as if the storm destroyed the past half-century of technology, instead leaving behind mementos of an earlier era (bathtub, wooden bed, acoustic guitar, trumpet, etc.). The residents in this flooded world have no use for technology, for without electricity, what good is technology? And without their families, what good is anything? Their only desire is to sail into the sea in order to reunite with their loved ones, who are submerged somewhere under all of that water. To do that, they must band together as a community—in the most spiritual sense of that word—and use their own hands to build a boat from scratch. All they’ve got is their undying spirit, hope, and love to keep them going. According to Zeitlin’s unapologetically sincere vision, that’s more than enough.
...If all of this mythical production lore and staggering technical proficiency were in the service of a lesser cause, Glory at Sea would still be required viewing. But the fact that Zeitlin has a deeply spiritual purpose is what makes it an absolute must-see. While the film is first and foremost about New Orleans, celebrating the undying spirit of that city and its people, it also succeeds as a universally uplifting tale about humanity on a grander scale. Glory at Sea celebrates hope and community and love in a world that is cruel and indifferent. To survive we must all stick together, we must love one another, we must believe."
Thank you Schex
