Living with Hurricanes, Katrina and Beyond

3D + Space Design, Multimedia Installation, Manipulative Interactives, Oral History Integration

for: Louisiana State Museum

with: Experience Design

Located at the historic Presbytere in Jackson Square, New Orleans, the 9,000 square foot exhibition features iconic artifacts ranging from Fats Domino’s personal piano to SuperDome seats to broken levee scraps. The exhibit blends history, culture, and science and features a wide breadth of oral histories from residents, politicians, major cultural figures, and scientists. Jessie led design on Living with Hurricanes, Katrina and Beyond from 2006-2011. 

Visitors are taken on a journey, as they meet the unique spirit, culture, and livelihood of New Orleans and coastal Louisiana and encounter the unfolding of Hurricane Katrina through a multichannel media installation of storm footage. Visitors then enter an attic recreation and find themselves in an immersive gallery featuring an object theater installation of oral histories and artifacts and experience the immediate aftermath of the catastrophe. A gallery focused on hurricane science, engineering, and disaster preparedness unpacks the technicalities of how the disaster occured. A final gallery features an installation of hope and change, highlighting voices of the recovery and local changemakers. Funded by the National Science Foundation.

Awards

What Have We Learned? Gallery, Life In Balance Multimedia Installation

AAM Muse Award Honorable mention 2011

What Have We Learned? Gallery, Faces of Change Multimedia Installation

Project Lead: Janet Kamien

Media Partner: A More Perfect Union

Fabricator: ExPlus, Inc.