The photographs in Richard Misrach's Destroy This Memory are a stark, affecting reminder of the physical and psychological impact of Hurricane Katrina as told by those on the ground, and seen through the lens of a contemporary master. Rather than simply surveying the damage, Misrach--who has photographed the region regularly since the 1970s, most notably for his ongoing Cancer Alley project--found himself drawn to the hurricane-inspired graffiti: messages scrawled in spray paint, crayons, chalk or whatever materials residents and rescue workers happened to have on hand. At turns...

Now available in a compact and easy-to-reference paperback edition, Petrochemical America features Richard Misrach's haunting photographic record of Louisiana's Chemical Corridor, accompanied by landscape architect Kate Orff's Ecological Atlas--a series of "speculative drawings" developed through research and mapping of data from the region. Their joint effort depicts and unpacks the complex cultural, physical and economic ecologies along 150 miles of the Mississippi River, from Baton Rouge to New Orleans, an area of intense chemical production that first garnered public attention as...