Tooth for an Eye: A Chorography of Violence in Orleans Parish #04-23 2008 - 2011

Deborah Luster made this photographic work, *Tooth for an Eye: A Chorography of Violence in Orleans Parish #04-23*, but when is not so clear. It’s not always about the when, is it? More often, it's about the where, and what Luster makes visible in that place. I imagine her thinking about violence, thinking about looking. What does it mean to witness violence? There's this tension in black and white photography, right? It flattens the image but also seems to amplify the sense of reality. I feel that flatness here, a kind of clinical eye, yet a deep emotional connection. There’s this interplay between document and feeling. Like, what does it mean to record something traumatic and how can that act of recording shift our perception and memory? Like a conversation across time, Luster’s work asks us to consider what it means to bear witness.