Into the Quiet and the Light

Reminiscent of the grand, romantic landscape paintings made by the Hudson River School of artists in the mid-19th century, these photos simmer with sublime beauty, even when one realizes that the subject of the camera’s focus is as monstrous, as unappealing, for instance, as a levee wall. -- Rien Fertal * NOLA.com * This powerful book about land loss and the destruction of the historically rich and abundant landscapes of southeastern Louisiana is a stunning call to action. Alongside what are often haunting anything-but-still-life images of built landscapes by Hanusik are moving essays, poems, vignettes, and histories of the region, many by and about the indigenous protectors and cultivators of the land, and the descendants of formerly enslaved Black Americans who've worked the disappearing marshes for centuries. After Hanusik foregrounds Into the Quiet and the Light with a background of the history of exploitation of natural resources by colonial powers in Louisiana dating back to the seventeenth century, her book soars into the present with the juxtaposed beauty of a land and its peoples against the omnipresent force of destruction and greed from the petrochemical industry and its forebears of global capitalism, racism, and all else that fuels climate catastrophe. -- Charlie Jones, A Room of One's Own Bookstore Hanusik's stark and beautiful photographs , and the accompanying essays, seem themselves to surface from the sediment of Louisiana's ephemeral and indeterminable coast. A powerful elegy for the disintegration of lifeways in the wake of industry and land loss. -- Sam Partel, Community Bookstore