Changing Course: Reflections on New Orleans Histories

New Orleans' well-known emblems—jazz, po-boys, the Mississippi River—are all getting their due throughout this tricentennial year, but New Orleans Museum of Art hopes to shed light on the less-talked-about. In Changing Course: Reflections on New Orleans Histories, seven contemporary art projects that focus on forgotten or marginalized histories of the city come together for one powerful exhibition at NOMA.

Skylar Fein’s installation Remember the Upstairs Lounge (2008) draws connections between the1973 arson at the Upstairs Lounge, a popular gay bar in the French Quarter, and more recent violence against LGBTQ communities, locally and nationally. The Propeller Group’s video The Living Need Light, The Dead Need Music (2014) meditates on the cultural traditions of New Orleans’ vibrant Vietnamese community and the fantastical funeral traditions and rituals of South Vietnam. Lesley Dill’s Hell Hell Hell / Heaven Heaven Heaven: Encountering Sister Gertrude Morgan (2010) explores the vital legacy of New Orleans artist, preacher and poet Sister Gertrude Morgan. A new installation of woodblock prints by Katrina Andry addresses questions of racial and economic disparity and the uneven urban development in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and also considers the impact that past infrastructure projects, such as the construction of I-10, had on historically African American neighborhoods in the city. L. Kasimu Harris’ War on the Benighted (ongoing) chronicles his work with New Orleans schoolchildren, which has resulted in photographs that place African American history at the center of a visual narrative that confronts stereotypes of youth and race and question the history of public education in New Orleans. 

Two additional project components offer spaces for community reflection, serving as the beginning of a conversation about how these New Orleans histories impact different communities across the city. Willie Birch's installation will simultaneously address specific historical events and the development of a contemporary art-centered community he is creating in New Orleans' Seventh Ward. Presenting new multi-media works confronts this area's relationship with its slave-holding past while also documenting the creation of a more inclusive community today. The Everyday Projects, a collective of photojournalists who use social media to combat clichéd representations of communities worldwide, will bring their Pulitzer Center-sponsored curriculum to New Orleans with #EverydayNewOrleans, encouraging participants to use photography to share their unique perspectives on life in their neighborhoods throughout Greater New Orleans. 

The exhibition remains on view until September 16. Visit noma.org for details on additional programming, including noontime talks, gallery tours, lectures and roundtables, and a documentary series.