Artist: Colleen Mullins

Project: Elysium

Description: Elysium is an examination of the diminishing urban forest of New Orleans, forever altered by a 70% canopy loss due to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and further destroyed by rescue and restoration crews in the wake of the storm and in the years since. The impact of this loss will be faced by New Orleans residents returning home for years to come. Absent street signs (and often the houses themselves), trees were frequently the only signifiers that told me that I’d returned to a site I wanted to photograph—in places where they’d disappeared, I was lost. Imagine if the tree was not a marker for a photograph, but a marker for your home.

Eyes on the South is curated by Jeff Rich. The weekly series features selections of current work from Southern artists, or artists whose photography concerns the South. To submit your work to the series, email Jeff at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..