Southeast Louisiana
The creative works in this gallery respond to research conducted in New Orleans and its surrounding communities. I accompanied local residents, food providers and environmental scholars through their daily routines, discussing how the landscape, food systems, and public policy have changed during their lifetime.
I spent time with Isabelle Cossart, owner of Isabelle’s Orange Orchard. Located on the banks of the Mississippi River in Algiers Point, LA, Isabelle explained how unprecedented draught conditions have contributed to rising salinity levels in the soil along the river bank, resulting in the death of over one hundred of her mature citrus trees. I also spent time with Justin Trosclair, an oyster farmer working off the coast of Grand Isle, a narrow barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico that has been devastated by relentless hurricanes. The devastation caused by Hurricane Ida in 2021 left Grand Isle properties in an insurance desert. But, despite the government’s refusal to provide a federal option, Trosclair maintains his oyster beds there.
Like South Florida, Southeast Louisiana is a coastal community with an economy that relies heavily on tourism and fishing industries. However, both of these economic drivers are under threat due to unprecedented salt water intrusion into local estuaries. The oral histories archived with each iteration of Dish acknowledge that local challenges are national challenges - that the obstacles afflicting one community affect us all. By documenting stories across similar communities, viewers may see echoes of their own experience within the drawings.