Journals of Displacement
includes: Voices of Displacement, Universal, Journal of Displacement and the video Still Here. Voices of Displacement and Maps of Displacement are based on interviews Katz did with displaced New Yorkers after 9/11 when they lost their homes or had to temporarily move. A map charted the route of a journey taken between the time they left home to the time they were permitted to return home and was then sewn onto silk gauze scrims draped across the installation. The stories, told in multiple languages, are heard on speakers across the installation space, echoing the confusion and unknown quality of that day. Universal, created later in 2005, began by asking people who spoke different languages to select one or several sentences from the previous project, Participants would then speak these responses in their own language, further displacing the “displacement”. This process emphasized the fact that being displaced is a universal experience. The artist also kept a journal throughout the project, with notes and drawings. Maps of Displacement is the title of the entire project and was created between 2001 and 2006. The video, Still Here runs as a loop. From 2003-2006, the combined images were assembled as an installation along with images of water and earth. Images were layered and superimposed along with selected sounds that formed a series of stories related to the experience of 9/11.