Curator Denise Markonish reports:

From July 14 – 21, 2008 I was in New Orleans with video artist Pawel Wojtasik working on a project for my upcoming exhibition called These Days: Elegies for Modern Times (a group show also including works by George Bolster, Chris Doyle, Robert Taplin and Micah Silver) which will open April 4, 2009.

Pawel’s project, titled Below Sea Level, is a panoramic video being filmed in New Orleans in collaboration with the composer Sebastian Currier. The finished piece will project on a 36-foot diameter circular screen that is 12-feet high and it addresses the relationship between New Orleans and its surrounding waters, focusing most specifically on the effects of industry on the disappearing wetlands (for more information on this please check out Pulitzer Prize Winning journalist Bob Marshall’s devastating account of the wetlands.

While on site in New Orleans we filmed in the Lower Ninth Ward (the area most devastated by Hurricane Katrina, which is just now, three years later, slowly being rebuilt); in New Orleans’ amazing cemeteries; in Bayous Gauche just outside the city (where we saw alligators), at an alternative arts space utilizing abandoned homes called KK Projects; throughout the Gulf of Mexico; along the Mississippi River and more.

Gian Pablo Villamil, a recent graduate of NYU’s ITP Program was with us serving as panoramic guru and tech assistant on the project. Check out his blog with images and details about technical side of filming a panoramic video using the Ladybug 2 camera. Pawel and Gian Pablo head back to New Orleans this week where they will finish up filming (they are planning a trip to an abandoned Six Flags Amusement Park, a canoe trip through a forest of dead trees and many other adventures), and after that the editing process will begin. Come to MASS MoCA in April to see the finished results!

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