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December 4, 2008

Kauffman’s “Waterline” photo exhibit to appear in Art with a View Dec. 11

Dr. Bette J. Kauffman, associate professor of mass communication at ULM, will exhibit her interactive photo installation "Waterline” as part of Art with a View Thursday, Dec. 11, from 5-8 p.m. on Premiere Tower’s fifth floor, located on North 18th St.

"Waterline" premiered at Art with a View in December of 2006. Since then, it has been exhibited in New Orleans twice and in Shreveport, and has changed thanks to the many comments written on the panels. Kauffman invites everyone to “come add to the dialogue.”

More about “Waterline”:
Waterline consists of 8 x 12 photographs mounted on white foam core and installed edge-to-edge with only the waterline in each photograph aligned. The photographs for each installation are selected from approximately 575 exposures made during five trips to New Orleans from April 1 – June 10, 2006.

Kauffman described her work: “The intent of the installation is to recreate to the extent possible the ubiquitous, equalizing and emotional power and effect of the actual flood line in the city of New Orleans.”

Waterline is an interactive exhibit. Marking pens are available for visitors to record responses to the photos on the foam core above and below the photographs. Many have responded with expressions of passion, anger, hope, and faith.

It was originally installed in the St. Matthias Chapel of Grace Episcopal Church on Canal Street in New Orleans on August 29, 2007. Kauffman concluded, “The purpose of Waterline is to raise awareness and understanding of the devastation of a wonderful and irreplaceable city, New Orleans.”

More about the photographer:
Kauffman received her bachelor’s degree in journalism (‘80) from the University of Iowa and her master’s degree (‘82) and Ph.D. (‘92) in communications from the University of Pennsylvania.

She has professional experience in still photography, videography, journalism, and public relations. She has exhibited photographs in The Bowl Room Gallery of the Iowa Memorial Union and in the School of Journalism at the University of Iowa, and has won awards in underwater photography competitions.

Her honors thesis used photography to study cross-cultural uses of public space, her master’s thesis studied children’s ability to interpret and analyze news and advertising photographs, and her doctoral dissertation was an ethnographic study of women artists.

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