Sarah Yahm - Sep 15, 2006 3:50 pm (#6 Total: 7)


Hey Elizabeth. My biggest challenge producing these pieces was about letting go of tape that was moving and powerful but just not broadcast quality. There were some incredibly moving and powerful moments where a bunch of evacuees sat around and talked and argued about the aftermath and I really wanted to find a way to present those intimate moments to the public. But they just hadn't been recorded well enough. So for me the major challenge was to find a way to use the tape that was more polished without losing the raw intimate feel.
this was the first time I'd produced from tape that other people had collected. (i collected some of it but most of it I didn't) and I realized you have a very different relationship to tape that you haven't collected yourself. Equally intimate but different. I thought i would have more perspective about what tape was usable because it wasn't "mine" but I very quickly developed the same lack of perspective I have towards tape I have collected myself.
It was strange to create these intimate portraits of people I hadn't actually met. That's what was so great about working with Abe. She kept me honest and kept me in touch, indirectly, with the people that I was documenting. I think most people give lip service to working collaboratively with their subjects but Abe really does it. she would play drafts for Big Chief Kevin goodman and second Chief Kevin Bush and then give me the feedback. The integrity of the process helped me really stay on track and kept me honest.

Abe Louise Young - Sep 19, 2006 8:30 pm (#7 Total: 7)


Hello All,

Thank you for the insightful and considered responses. One of the most important things I learned through working on Hurricane Katrina-related documentation is that so many of the most vulnerable evacuees, who emerged (?) from the deep poverty of New Orleans, do not live in a text-based world. They've had no control over how they were represented in the media--before or after the storm. About a third of the folks I've interviewed do not read and write comfortably--conversely, they are true champions of the verbal art. The context of meaning-making in their lives--as far as I understand--is social, familial, musical, and cultural.

In the absence of textual literacy, going back to narrators with "transcripts" is impossible. In my interviewing process, I discovered that it was critical to let narrators hear their own voices recorded, and hear the recorded voices of other survivors. This created a transpersonal context for understanding their experience, and often deepened and broadened what was said. When playing excerpts of other evacuee's interviews to each new evacuee I met with--suddenly, there was a context for their story to surge out, struggle, and connect in relationship to. They were in a sense "talking" to the other people who'd offered story--and that was very different from talking to me, a white woman who (no matter how sentimentally attached to the city) left New Orleans ten years ago. This was a beautiful, fascinating process to observe.

The making of this show involved working intently to keep the narrators in the loop of their representation. For example, Sarah had to make a choice about how to represent interactions with police. There were so many negative experiences on tape to draw from--and a few positive ones. So, we asked the people talking: is it important to show a balanced view? Several hours of debate in the middle of the night emerged from this question. No resolution was found, everyone agreed upon their desire to have a moment of hope at the end, to give strength to other evacuees who might be listening.

To me, including narrators in the making of the final story is as important a step as recording the original tape. Sarah Yahm is a genius at allowing a story to evolve over time, and her openness to this often slow and zigzag process made a kind of integrity possible that I think we're both surprised about and proud of.

The public and private emotional experience of Hurricane Katrina is going to continue to detonate over the many decades. A key to understanding the evacuee experience is in Kevin Bush's words, which unfortunately were recorded too poorly (on a windy porch, in a large conversation). He said that the black people of New Orleans were made to feel like Hurricane Katrina was *their* fault. Now, in the vacuum of true aid or resettlement, that feeling is amplified. These emotions are something that I think our country has to hear, and address-- even if it is "the kiss of death" to demand we focus--for as long as it takes-- on the painful truth.

Thank you for listening, and for this conversation. Blessings to all.