Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2007 - (Page 5)

LEH Receives $350,000 NEH Technology Challenge Grant The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded the LEH a highly competitive $350,000 Digital Humanities Initiative Challenge Grant to complete the installation of a state-of-the-art Louisiana Humanities Education Center and to integrate digital technology into all phases of LEH programming. “This challenge grant is a major endorsement of the LEH’s efforts to expand its statewide programs through the most advanced digital, web-based technology available,” said LEH president and executive director Michael Sartisky. “It will help the LEH build even greater partnerships across the state with colleges, libraries, museums, and with state and community cultural organizations. It also will be the foundation for a dazzling new webbased encyclopedia on Louisiana history and culture that will benefit everyone in Louisiana from school children to cultural tourism.” The new Louisiana Humanities Education Center at Turners’ Hall in New Orleans, headquarters for the LEH, includes a multi-use auditorium and seminar rooms equipped with the fastest Internet and the latest presentation and video-conferencing technology. It will be used to conduct Prime Time family literacy training sessions and advanced teacher professional development seminars. New computer hardware and software also will support a web-based format for Louisiana Cultural Vistas, the development of a comprehensive grant and program database, and LEH’s newest venture, an on-line Encyclopedia of Louisiana History and Culture. NEH panelist praised the LEH project with comments such as: • “The supporting materials indicate that this is much more than a pedagogical project, but has the broad vision of enhancing knowledge and experience generally in the humanities in Louisiana.” • “This funding will allow LEH to address significant problems and improve the lives of Louisianans, especially in literacy and improving the qualified teaching base.” The $350,000 challenge grant must be matched three-to-one from non-federal sources of funding. The LEH also will use the grant and matching funds to create an endowment to support equipment maintenance and upgrades, licensing and staff training. , an art-and-humanities installation, on view at Louisiana State Museum-Baton Rouge Floodwall, an LEH-supported traveling exhibition, will be on display at the Louisiana State Museum-Baton Rouge through October 13, 2007. Moved to action by the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, artist Jana Napoli collected hundreds of drawers from the flooded and abandoned neighborhoods of New Orleans in the days and months that followed. In this installation, created in partnership with Rondell Crier and Whirlwind Creative, the drawers are mounted as a massive wall standing 8 feet tall and stretching 96 feet long. Embedded in the drawers are audio devices that project the voices of the drawers’ former owners whose stories replace what the drawers once held. Their Floodwall, an installation words reminisce and mourn: of drawers salvaged “I thought New Orleans from the debris of would be a good place to go Hurricane Katrina in for rain and history, and it New Orleans, measures 8 feet was.” . “Having to throw tall by 96 feet your furniture out in front of long. your house — your life is sort of taken from you and sort of dumped out in your front yard.” “New Orleans was here before America was here and we are a part of America.” “Floodwall is a journey through loss and transformation. It explores the human connection to culture and community expressed through the everyday objects of people,” says Jed Horne, former Times-Picayune city editor and author of the acclaimed book, Breach of Faith. “Through found objects and a multi-media interpretive presentation, Floodwall speaks of what was lost to Katrina and what remains of New Orleans.” Floodwall first came to life in the fall of 2005 when Napoli began gathering furniture junked after the floodwaters of Katrina receded. Sweeping across the city, Napoli collected dresser drawers from heaps of ravaged belongings in front of flooded homes. “We were driven to create a wailing wall that builds intimate and homely detritus from a world destroyed into a wrenching cry of grief,” says Napoli. “This emotional endeavor quickly grew into a sculptural and historical work allowing the people of New Orleans to tell their own story about what they value and why.” For more information on Floodwall and the Louisiana State Museum-Baton Rouge, log on to:www.floodwall.org/pressreleaseBR.html WHIRLWIND CREATIVE LEH awards $378,000 in humanities grants Since July 1, the LEH has awarded over $378,000 in grants to 23 organizations in 14 parishes. These grants will help finance projects from Natchitoches to New Orleans, including conferences, documentary films, museum exhibitions and festivals. For a complete list, log on to: http://www.leh.org/html/grants_recentaward.html Fall 2007/LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES 5 http://www.floodwall.org/pressreleaseBR.html http://www.leh.org/html/grants_recentaward.html

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2007

Contents Friends & Letters Editor’s Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Big Charity: A History of New Orleans’ Public Hospital Historic New Orleans Collection Making Groceries: A History of New Orleans Markets New Orleans’ Faubourg Tremé: Rooted in Tradition Jazz Notes Louisiana Association of Museums Chinatown New Orleans Louisiana Foodways A Question of Secession Louisiana Architecture Louisiana State Museum The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish Terra Incognita Bookstand Sound Advice Forum

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2007

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