FILM

Project Row Houses presents Notes on the Emptying of a City, a performance work by Ashley Hunt, in the Historic Eldorado Ballroom, free and open to the public, Thursday, July 1 at 7pm.

“Notes on the Emptying of a City” is a performance that acts as a dismantled film, in which a single narrator pieces together the sounds, images and voiceover of a documentary before a live audience. Based upon material generated in the city of New Orleans in the months following Hurricane Katrina, it opens a unique space of reflection at a time when the urgency of Katrina seems to have receded into a comfortable past as new economies of disaster and risk form around states of emergency around the world. In the performance, a figure sits alone at a desk with a printed text and a laptop computer.

What looks at first like a traditional slide lecture quickly turns into storytelling — a narrator recounting his experiences as an artist working with a group of social justice activists in the storm’s aftermath. Spoken over slides of ruined and emptied architecture, he reflects upon being a witness, an observer, a listener and a speaker among other speakers; upon the cataloguing marks left by soldiers and police; and upon the prison that the city had refused to evacuate before the storm. Between each account, the narrator cues a video, replaying the testimony of citizens — a neighbor, an organizer, a group of protesters — each speaking to their experience and making a claim to their place in the city.

Artist’s Biography: Ashley Hunt is an artist, activist and writer who engages the ideas of social movements, modes of learning and public discourse. Among his works are the ongoing “Corrections Documentary Project” (1999–present), “On Movement Thought and Politics” (2004–present), a collaboration with Taisha Paggett, “A World Map: In Which We See…,” (2004–2010) and “9 Scripts From a Nation at War” (2007), a collaboration with Andrea Geyer, Sharon Hayes, Katya Sander and David Thorne, commissioned originally for Documenta 12.

Recent exhibitions include the Tate Modern, the Nottingham Contemporary, the 18th Street Center for Art in Los Angeles, the Gallery at REDCAT, the 3rd Bucharest Biennial, and various community-based venues throughout the United States.