September 13th, 2005 - A few weeks prior to Hurricane Katrina, I completed this photo project with the intent of displaying the images in a New Orleans gallery.  Clearly that's not going to happen any time soon.  When I evacuated my now-flooded house,  these photos were among the few possessions that I saved.  I look at the images now and realize with some despair what's been lost.  New Orleans has been my adopted home for a total of ten years,  and for the most part it's been an experience that has enriched my life enormously.  While the city certainly had its share of problems prior to Katrina,  the good has always outweighed the bad,  elegance has always balanced out crassness, and a general attitude of tolerance has always won out over bigotry and close-mindedness.  Now that the city has been reshaped by this disaster,  I'm left wondering if the quirkiness of its people and the physical charm of the landscape will be irreparably harmed.  I look at these images now and feel privileged to have been witness to the pre-Katrina New Orleans.  I can only hope that the diaspora will reverse over the next few months to reinvigorate this beloved and beleaguered town.

THE "GREETINGS FROM NEW ORLEANS" PROJECT

From June 20th to July 23rd, 2005, I developed a series of original images from my archive of New Orleans and Mardi Gras photos.  I turned the 4x6 images into glossy,  professional-grade postcards and provided each with a message from a fictitious sender to a fictitious recipient.  Each card starts with the phrase "Greetings from New Orleans".  The various messages were intended to be both personal and provocative,  to elicit a range of emotion from sympathy to disgust.  A newlywed writes home about her decadent honeymoon,  a recently released Angola inmate writes to an old girlfriend for help,  a visiting Army Corps Engineer exclaims that the city is doomed should a big storm hit it directly,  a bigot complains to a friend about all the gays ruining the French Quarter, etc, etc, etc. 

33 unique postcards were generated.  Each was addressed to a single locale in Ohio, stamped,  and copied three times for a total of 99 cards.  I then proceeded to intentionally "lose" them all over the city of New Orleans.  As discreetly as possible,  I littered the cards on park benches, cafe tables, bookstore aisles, sidewalks, restaurant entrances, park tracks, and a variety of other high traffic areas.  My hope was that a few of the postcards would be found, puzzled over, perhaps giggled at,  and then conscientiously deposited in the nearest mailbox.  After all, isn't that the "right" thing to do when you come across a letter that is clearly wayward?  How could a person pass up such an easy opportunity to do a good deed?

By addressing all 99 cards to my contacts in Ohio I was able to eventually regain custody of the "rescued" images.  I assume the rest of them are either at the dump or on the submerged refrigerators of "found art" afficianados.  In the end,  of the 99 "lost" postcards, a surprising 53 of them found their way into a mailbox,  solid proof that the much-maligned people of New Orleans aren't so bad after all.

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Inspiration Addendum: I'd like to thank Sarah Mann, a Milwaukee-based jeweler and good friend, for inspiring the idea behind this project.  Also, the late great Stanley Milgram, social psychologist extraordinaire, who developed and used the "lost letter" technique as a tool for measuring kindness behaviours of a community.

                                                                              Justin Lundgren (lundgrenjm@hotmail.com)

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The images on this site are for sale as LIMITED-EDITION prints. A portion of the proceeds will go directly to the greatest volunteer-run community radio station in the world, 90.7 FM - WWOZ, which is based right here in New Orleans. Just click on the link under each image for directions, and please allow 2-4 weeks for delivery.

Prints will be limited as follows:

Each 4x6 image limited to 100

Each 8x11.5 image limited to 75

Each 11x17 image limited to 50

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For those of you in New Orleans, check out the "Greetings Project" in real life at the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center, 900 Camp Street. The show will be up until July 9th.

For those of you in Martha's Vineyard over the week of July 17th to July 22nd, the Greetings from New Orleans Project will be on view as part of the Vineyard Gumbo Festival which benefits several New Orleans-based non-profits. See more information on the Vineyard Gumbo Festival at Vineyard Gumbo.

Comments

[NBeiman]

I have a 2002 model Canon laserjet printer that I am not currently using. It can be updated with current drivers. If you need this machine let me know and I can send it down to you.

[andres]

this is wonderful!

[mary]

greetings from chattanooga. would love to test the ratio of kindness here. your site is beautiful. thank you.

[Gloria Jones]

Our robot found your photoblog site and added it to our listings.
Your site immediately made it into the top 500 photoblogs.
Would be nice to see you claiming your blog @
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cheers, Gloria
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Gloria Jones
Webmistress @
http://www.photoblogdirectory.org
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[Rod F.]

As a frequent visitor to New Orleans I found your project a bittersweet experience. Excellent work, hope it finds a good home, whether it's a gallery, or a book, or even an expanded site.

[zigzag]

A number of my friends are photographed here, and I remember looking at this in September after the hurricane. It was a joy to be able to see it again during Mardi Gras this year. I love the concept behind the project, by the way.... brilliant!

[Ed Bremson]

Wow, great photos. We're lucky that they were captured. Priceless.

[MitchBlair]

This is a beautiful site. My best friends and I travelled to New Orleans in March of 2004 and we had the time of our lives. We spent the entire day at Yo Momma's Cafe in the Quarter.
I hope your home feels like home very soon. I send you hope. I send you bliss.

[Miguel]

Please try to visit my blog..

[Miguel]

Spam..Spam..Spam

[Lauren]

Ludlow Ave! I use to live off of Ludlow Avenue in Cincinnati. Did you use to live in Clifton too?

Great images by the way!

[WatchEFDF]

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[Deepayan]

this is very good.

[Adam]

great project