Call and Response

On 29 August 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the US Gulf Coast and New Orleans was inundated after catastrophic levee failures. More than 1,800 people died and many more were displaced.

Call and Response is a series of collage works developed two decades on from my narrow escape from New Orleans as part of a 43-member Australian and New Zealand community choir. Under the guidance of choirmaster Tony Backhouse, we travelled to the United States to explore the heart and soul of gospel music country. Our repertoire, including The Storm Is Passing Over, Only a Prayer Away and Be Thankful, became an eerie portent of what was to come. We escaped by taxi convoy, organised by a local driver named BJ, and found safety in Memphis with hundreds of other evacuees. From there, we watched as the city drowned and help failed to come.

Anchored by music, the exhibition unfolds in five movements: Prelude, Exodus, Lament, Testimony and Coda. Each collage is accompanied by a haibun that carries the visual narrative into language. Together, image and text trace the journey from escape to aftermath, drawing on altered photographs, public-domain imagery, found text, acrylic ink and paint across paper, board and canvas.

The series reflects on the suffering unleashed by Katrina, but also on wider questions it exposed: how race, inequality and vulnerability shape who is protected, who is left waiting, and who bears the greatest burden in disaster. Over 20 years on, Call and Response invites viewers to reflect on those questions in a warming world.