If This Place Is Anything, It's French
As a cultural incubator, artist George Marks’ brainchild—NUNU Arts and Culture Collective (NUNU)—is a firestorm fed by the oxygen-rich energy of this painter and culture broker. If you haven’t yet heard of NUNU, then there are many other places where you can read about its origins and development. Suffice it to say that NUNU has become the poster child for “creative placemaking” in South Louisiana, the shining example of how places—usually small and economically-depressed places—might transform themselves into vibrant, economically-vital communities by nurturing what makes that place like no other place in the world. This April, NUNU will produce the second iteration of a cultural exchange with France to continue to explore this social and economic experiment.
In Arnaudville, where NUNU is located, what makes this place like no other is its position at the intersection of bayous Teche and Fuselier, the native Cajun French speakers you might overhear at the post office, and the rural Cajun and Creole traditions that have produced the Annual Etouffee Festival. While the goal is certainly not to thwart new ideas and forms of expression, NUNU’s success seems to lie in the deeply rooted traditions that already bind this community together, providing a strong sense of identity. The common thread among these examples, and the strongest surviving thread in this neck of the woods, is definitively French; and NUNU nurtures this heritage through its programming.
Word about this small-town experiment spread to the French Consulate in New Orleans, and a delegation from Arnaudville was asked in 2012 to represent the state in a cultural exchange with the Brittany region of France. The group interacted with a French collective, Les Articulteurs, that had accomplished some place-remaking of its own Brittany. From this exchange, a partnership was born and the French group was invited to Arnaudville last year for a weeklong celebration and professional summit called La Semaine Française d’Arnaudville (LSF).
The event, open to the public, was a resounding success. The relationships formed during that week spawned a variety of new projects: another exchange trip to France last fall, the growth of LSF to many other areas of the state as far north as Monroe, an expanded summit on placemaking in Baton Rouge, and several ongoing local projects. Even more amazing, the week was almost entirely produced with in-kind and volunteer support. “It’s a rather impressive listing of sponsors who donated a lot of in-kind services,” said Jacqui Cochran, who is the communications director for NUNU. “We had many volunteers offering community support.”
The organizers are staging a repeat performance this April 18—23, which coincides with Easter. Because the area is steeped in Catholicism, Cochran said LSF will include activities that highlight local Easter traditions such as egg paquing and family potlucks. The educational component will include presentations about the developing Corridor des Arts as well as keynote speeches by French natives Marco Félez and Fabienne Malbon, both specialists in job creation using the cultural economy methods.