Monique Verdin at Crevasse 22 I River House

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Sunday, May 16th 12 - 5

For Immediate Release Immediate Release: May 12, 2021 Contact: Jeanne Nathan 917.232.4522 Nat...@cano-la.org SPECIAL EXHIBIT BY MONIQUE VERDIN, Return to Yakni Chitto : Houma Migrations IN ROBERT C. TANNEN'S MODGUN AT CREVASSE 22 I RIVER HOUSE in Poydras, LA "I love the idea of the Return to Yakni Chitto : Houma Migrations exhibition being in the MODHouse!" said Monique Verdin Where is Yakni Chitto? We trace the indigenous Mobilian Trade Language words for "Big Country" to the area between the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers--land that is quickly disappearing due to coastal erosion and climate change. Sharing both the history and contemporary culture of the Houma Nation, historian and philosopher T. Mayheart Dardar weaves the story of Monique's family through their experiences over 300 years in the unceded land of South Louisiana. As we learn about their cyclical migrations, we also learn from Houma elders Anesie & Jane Verdin and their granddaughter Allison Rodriguez. Poems by Ray Moose Jackson and stories of collaborative art-making by ArtSpot Productions director Kathy Randels and Mondo Bizarro co-director Nick Slie also inform us. Monique's exhibit is part of the "post-Covid" reopening of Crevasse 22 I River House. CANO CELEBRATES THE REOPENING OF CREVASSE 22 | RIVER HOUSE WITH “INVISIBLE RIVERS” FEATURING THE “FLOAT LAB,” A COLLABORATION OF MONDO BIZARRO AND THE LAND MEMORY BANK & SEED EXCHANGE Sunday, May 16, 2021, 12noon - 5:00 pm Crevasse 22 | River House, at 8122 Saro Lane in Poydras, LA The Creative Alliance of New Orleans is pleased to announce this season’s rescheduled reopening festivities of Crevasse 22 | River House with "Invisible Rivers" featuring the "Float Lab," a collaboration of Mondo Bizarro and The Land Memory Bank & Seed Exchange.   “Invisible Rivers”, featuring the Float Lab, is a series comprised of exhibitions with educational performances. It employs the artistic practices of music, theater and boat-building to respond to our region’s interconnected struggles against coastal land loss, environmental racism and displacement. Mondo Bizarro is building boats in rapidly disappearing areas of our coast and hosting dialogues and performances on them. “Invisible Rivers” physically models ideas about how we can live with fluctuation, uncertainty, and symbiosis in our increasingly watery world.   On May 16th, Mondo Bizarro begins their residency at Crevasse 22 | River House with the installation featuring the Float Lab, collaborating with artist Monique Verdin and her family of indigenous Houma Nation boat builders. They designed and developed the Float Lab that will travel by land and water to various locations that will host the Invisible Rivers activities.   Float Lab is a 15’ by 8 1⁄2’ pontoon platform/boat outfitted with a display area for exhibitions and a seine net to harvest seafood. “It is designed and built as a blank canvas to allow for various types of experimentation related to how we can live on water. Part field station for community engagement, part performance venue, part art exhibition space, it will provide an activation site to bring our ancestral, cultural, and physical knowledge of the wild, free-flowing past into the present” says Nick Slie. The Grand Opening of “Invisible Rivers'' includes art, music, local cuisine, and refreshments.   THE ART EXHIBITIONS   Works on view in the River House include contemporary and historic paintings, installations, carved wildfowl, photography, ceramic sculptures and a model for the Robert Tannen and Frank Gehry “ModGun,” a modular house design intended as a post disaster housing alternative to trailers. The “ModGun” can easily be expanded with additional rooms like adding cars to a train.   Also included is an exhibition of ceramic sculptures called “Earth-Works,” with works by Susan Bergman, MaPo Kinnord, Christina Larson, Kevin O’Keefe, Sandra Pulitzer, Robert Tannen and now Lucia Aquino. The carved wildfowl are by regional artists that reflect their love and commitment to the environment and the lifestyle it supports of hunting, fishing, and living in a coastal zone. Robert Smith has added new carved wildfowl works. Other artists currently included in the River House are: John James Audubon, Walter Anderson, and Pippin Frisbee Calder.   CANO is also presenting new, large-scale sculptures in the Crevasse 22 Sculpture Garden. Current artists in the sculpture garden include Rayne Bedsole, Luis Colmenares, Clifton Faust, Mitchell Gaudet, Gene Koss, Christopher Saucedo, and Robert Tannen. New additions in the garden include works by Hannah Chalew, Jennifer Odem, Anastasia Pelias, and Robin Tanner.   Crevasse 22 | River House, which opened as a pop-up arts venue for Prospect.3 in 2014-1015 is now permanent and continues to present exhibitions related to the “beauty and risks of nature”, addressing the threats to this region demonstrated by Hurricane Katrina, other storms and climate change driven ocean rise that is drowning marshes throughout Louisiana’s gulf coast.   THE SITE   “The site is located in a classic Louisiana landscape, next to a small lake carved into Bayou Terre aux Boeufs. Families are welcome and can also enjoy the trails in the woods just behind the River House,” said Creative Alliance of New Orleans Executive Director, Jeanne Nathan.   “The Torres | Burns Trust is happy to welcome the public and is enjoying the visitors who have discovered a part of St. Bernard they didn’t know was here, including the landscape, the art, and the people,” said Sidney Torres, owner with Roberta Burns of the extensive site.   Torres and Burns have treasured the bucolic Louisiana site of the crevasse, or breach in the river that in 1922 created a small lake out of the bayou surrounded by live oaks dripping with Spanish Moss, and home to many permanent and migrating bird species. Torres and Burns, further “hope that the presentations at Crevasse 22 | River House will reinforce the cultural legacy of the Parish and help draw former and new residents and businesses to the Parish to realize its potential for rejuvenation and growth”. Sidney Torres is a descendant of Los Islenos, or Canary Islanders who migrated to the region in the 18th century, to help the Spanish prevent British colonization of the region.   ###   For Inquiries, Contact Jeanne Nathan, phone number 917-232-4522 or jnath...@gmail.com CANO | 2326 Esplanade Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70119 cano-la.org

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Sunday, May 16th 12 - 5

MONIQUE VERDIN’S Return to Yakni Chitto: Houma Migrations in

ROBERT C. TANNEN'S MODGUN AT CREVASSE 22 I RIVER HOUSE in Poydras, LA

For the last year, Monique Verdin’s exhibition dedicated to her Houma family’s migrations between Terrebonne and St. Bernard parishes has traveled around south Louisiana, and we are excited to have it at Crevasse 22 I River House for our grand reopening! Produced by the Neighborhood Story Project as a companion to the book by the same name, the exhibition was curated by environmental artist Michel Varisco. Designed as three standing pillars. Visitors will have a chance to experience how the archival images, intimate portraits and landscapes of Louisiana’s southern coast, and the poetry by Raymond “Moose” Jackson come together to tell a story of living with ancestors between land and water in the book Return to Yakni Chitto: Houma Migrations with photographs and essays by Monique Verdin

CANO CELEBRATES THE REOPENING OF CREVASSE 22 | RIVER HOUSE WITH “INVISIBLE RIVERS,” A COLLABORATION BETWEENMONDO BIZARRO AND THE LAND MEMORY BANK & SEED EXCHANGE   Sunday, May 16, 2021, 12 noon - 5:00 pm Crevasse 22 | River House, at 8122 Saro Lane in Poydras, LA On May 16th, Mondo Bizarro and the Land Memory Bank and Seed Exchange begin their residency at Crevasse 22 | River House with “Invisible Rivers,” featuring the Float Lab. Employing the artistic practices of music, theater and boat-building, Invisitble Rivers responds to our region’s interconnected struggles against coastal land loss, environmental racism and displacement. The Float Lab physically models ideas about how we can live with fluctuation, uncertainty, and symbiosis in our increasingly watery world.   The 15’ by 8 1⁄2’ pontoon platform/boat was designed by Monique Verdin’s family, and is outfitted with a display area for exhibitions and a seine net to harvest seafood. Mondo Bizarro co-director, Nick Slie, explains, “It was built as a blank canvas to allow for various types of experimentation related to how we can live on water. Part field station for community engagement, part performance venue, part art exhibition space, it will provide an activation site to bring our ancestral, cultural, and physical knowledge of the wild, free-flowing past into the present.” The Grand Opening of “Invisible Rivers'' includes art, music by Bruce Sunpie Barnes, local cuisine, and refreshments. Return to Yakni Chitto: Houma Migrations (University of New Orleans Press 2020) will be available for purchase.

CANO | 2326 Esplanade Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70119 cano-la.org