WLI Partners with Blue House on Mixed Media

SWBNO Supervisor Conard “CJ” James takes a photograph of his portrait hanging on the wall of the Blue House during the Mixed Media: Water Systems exhibition opening.

WLI is proud to have been a partner in the development of Mixed Media: Water Systems, a project which connects us through art, photography, and storytelling to a larger public dialogue on water management and “living with water” in New Orleans. The Mixed Media: Water Systems project features paintings by Anne Nelson — who developed her Water Series paintings through her participation alongside neighborhood leaders in WLI’s pilot cohort — and photographs by Christine “CFreedom” Brown and Maggie Hermann — who documented the people who operate our city’s pump stations and the work they do each day to keep them running.

In addition to being an online resource with photographs and stories from the city’s drainage pump stations, the Advocate also distributed 100,000 copies of a special print feature in December, 2019, while the Blue House is currently hosting an exhibition of the work from December 2019 to April 2020. Through Mixed Media, WLI worked with the Blue House to host a series of public events to foster learning and dialogue on water issues, ranging from a poetry reading with Kalamu ya Salaam to discussions with scientists and geo-hydrologists on mosquitoes and groundwater to a public conversation between pump station operators and community members.  

Through efforts like these, WLI builds shared knowledge on critical environmental and infrastructural issues across diverse stakeholder groups, in order to support more informed and productive debate on why residents are experiencing flooding, and what solutions might exist for reducing the impact of rain and tropical storms on our low-lying, bowl-like landscape.