Thursday, February 10, 2022, 6:30pm join us to meet and learn more about current Rising: Climate in Crisis Residents Virginia Hanusik and Lisa E. Harris. Both artists will give a short presentation followed by a light dinner and refreshments outdoors. At A Studio in the Woods, 13401 Patterson Rd. New Orleans 70131. Registration required below.  Proof of vaccination or negative PCR test within 72 hours required for those 5 and up. Directions here.

While in residence, Virginia Hanusik will work on The Place We Keep, a series exploring the inequality of disaster relief and preservation in communities along the Gulf Coast experiencing the impacts of climate change through a compilation of photographs, oral histories, and public programming on the perpetuation of environmental injustice in the region.

Lisa E. Harris’ residency will support the regional development of an international research project, ONSHORE TRILLING: What to Do When the Earth Sings the Bruise, by affording opportunities for mutual creative exchange between Harris and the Women of Cancer Alley and Rise St. James. This multi-year project will become a performance cycle based on the life cycle of an oil and gas field, and will be informed by the environmental practices of onshore women-led communities, near productive drilling communities around the world.

Virginia Hanusik is an artist whose work explores the relationship between landscape, culture, and the built environment. Her projects on climate change and environmental justice have been exhibited internationally, featured in The New Yorker, Domus, Places Journal, The Atlantic, MAS Context, and Oxford American among others, and supported by the Pulitzer Center, Graham Foundation, and Mellon Foundation. She has lectured at institutions including Columbia University, Bard College, New York University, and Rutgers University about landscape representation and the visual narrative of climate change, and is on the board of directors of The Water Collaborative of Greater New Orleans where she coordinates multi-disciplinary projects on the climate crisis.

Lisa E. Harris is an independent and interdisciplinary artist, creative soprano, performer, composer, improvisor, filmmaker, writer, singer/songwriter, researcher and educator from Houston, Texas. Recognized by Huffington Post as “one of fourteen artists transforming Opera,” Harris’ work resists genre classification as she focuses on the energetic relationships between body, land, spirit and place. Using voice, theremin, electronics, movement, improvisation, meditation and new media to explore spatial awareness, relationality, panoptic surveillance and sonic profiling, she maintains a focused concentration on healing in performance and living.

Self-portrait by Virginia Hanusik. Photo of Lisa E. Harris by John “Juice” Harris.