Water Works
Drawing energy from the River, Baton Rouge's Ebb and Flow Festival will extend from one weekend to six this year.
Cities develop in strange and unpredictable ways. Baton Rouge’s capitols, old and new, overlook the Mississippi River, and Tiger Stadium can ripple the water with a great touchdown or a blind ref, but at some point in its evolution southeastward, the capital city turned away from its reason for being. Thankfully, Mother Mississippi has a forgiving heart. With her cult following of plein air artists and downtown office workers on lunch breaks, she has chugged along well enough without Baton Rouge’s approbation but emerges now as the foundation of the city’s reinvigorated cultural identity. At least, that’s what the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge intends.
A singular geographic feature that buoys people to new creative heights and encourages peaceable, even exuberant, gatherings—that’s what the river could be to Baton Rouge as an artistic icon and what it has been for at least one spring weekend each year since Ebb and Flow Festival was founded by the Arts Council in 2017. But faint heart never won fair lady, and this year, one weekend becomes six weeks of Ebb and Flow Festival Season, as the festival absorbs new partner Forum 35’s annual multi-media juried art exhibit Art Melt. Baptized by the river, Art Melt becomes Art Flow, and the city benefits from a lively spring of art and ecology exhibits, installations, and interactive experiences from Louisiana artists eddying out in a three-mile radius from downtown Baton Rouge. How can you repay such a gift? Even citizens who can’t manage a stick figure (or a Red Stick figure) can play along, voting on their favorite exhibits throughout March and April. Juried and public prizes will be announced at the festival proper on April 6 & 7. If Baton Rouge can look in one direction together for one month, imagine what that means for years to come.
This article originally appeared in the February 2019 issue. Subscribe to our print edition here.