Under The Level

Filed under Open Workshop, projects

Event Information

Artist: Catherine Colman + Angela Pablo
Website: www.underthelevel.org

Under the Level seeks to increase awareness about the situation that New Orleans is currently facing post-Katrina and provide for specific ways to help recovery efforts by implementing visual interventions on the streets of Williamsburg.

The devastation that is still present within the city of New Orleans, especially in neighborhoods like the Lower 9th Ward, can only been matched in urgency by the lack of adequate governmental and national response. In order to raise awareness about the circumstances that residents of the city are now facing, we have studied and researched the potential that NYC faces of flood from a similar size storm due to its proximity to large bodies of water and the rising of sea level yearly due to global warming. Several neighborhoods in NYC are particularly at risk, Williamsburg being one of them.

In order to signify the similarity between neighborhoods such as the Lower 9th Ward and Williamsburg, we have re-appropriated the “X” spray painted on many homes and buildings within New Orleans to signify that the location was searched and what was found inside, and reapplied the symbol to black and yellow stickers. These stickers utilize the design of the original marking, while making the language of FEMA, which is not intended for public consumption, readable by anyone. The stickers have a phone number and a URL and will be placed along Bedford Ave from North 3rd Street to McCarren Park. For Conflux 2007, we would like to conduct a walking tour, where participants would walk down the street, call in to our phone system, enter in their cross-street location and receive information about what the location would look like had there been a flood in the area.