PRESENCE & PRECARITY: A LOUISIANA FAIRYTALE

OPENING APRIL 16, 2023 at PRESERVATION HALL

AN EXHIBITion FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

viewing on select sundays from 11am to 2pm

The work of artists Felicita Felli Maynard and Adam Davis interrogate and reimagine our notions of history, memory and “the archive.” Through their use of early photographic production processes, they question history’s shortcomings and silences.

Blending the contemporary with a historical aesthetic, their work and this exhibit will provide a portal for viewers to blend past, present and future in a way that creates compulsory reflection and speculation.

Guest-curated by Nic[o] Brierre Aziz, Presence and Precarity: A Louisiana Fairytale, will present the works of Maynard and Davis in collaboration with a third “artist”—the archives of Preservation Hall and the long history of Black performance that has unfolded at 726 St. Peter Street. Intentionally blending archives, artifacts and contemporary works, the exhibit gives viewers the opportunity to reflect on the ways in which we tell stories about our ancestors and about Black music in the City of New Orleans.

Locals and visitors alike have observed that New Orleans feels simultaneously like one of the most European and most African cities in the United States. The magnitude of that dichotomy flows through the city’s many cultural expressions– whether we are talking about the food, the architecture or the music, it is nearly impossible not to be struck by the wonders of the city’s cultural abundance.

Yet that great abundance also harbors great complexity. As the nexus of the transatlantic slave trade in the U.S. and the “birthplace of jazz,” the ways that Blackness have transformed this city have also dramatically changed the world. Black culture and Black performance in New Orleans has spawned new ways of being across the globe.

This exhibition addresses these many complexities, acknowledging that the manner in which we pay reverence to Black culture and culture-bearers in this city must be reimagined powerfully for our times.

EXHIBIT VIEWING SCHEDULE

Sunday, April 16

Sunday, April 30

Sunday, May 7

Sunday, May 14

Sunday, May 21

Sunday, May 28

Sunday, June 4

Sunday, June 11

Sunday, June 18

11AM TO 2PM

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

ADAM DAVIS

Adam Davis is an educator, artist, advocate, and practitioner in the art of collaboration. He obsessively seeks to apply his passion for creativity, communication, and storytelling to assist in finding solutions to problems that hinder diverse and equitable cultural progression at the intersection of the arts and education. As a griot his works delve into building scaffolded archives on the African diaspora to ensure that the invaluable stories shared by communities around the globe are preserved for centuries to come.

Davis’ “Black Magic” is a multi-disciplinary art project rooted in tintype photography. The goal is to make 20,000 portraits of Black people around America.

FELICITA FELLI MAYNARD

Felicita Felli Maynard is a first-generation Afro-Latine interdisciplinary artist, archivist and researcher who works across historical forms of analog and alternative photography. Through their work, Maynard is critiquing the way beings from the African diaspora past, present and future have been memorized by history. A direct analysis of how structures of colonialism, capitalism and time have directly impacted and shifted the experiences of descendants of the African diaspora.

Maynard is currently based in New Orleans as a MFA candidate in photography at Tulane University (2023), graduate student worker at the Newcomb Archives, and a Mellon Community engaged fellow (2023). Maynard is an archivist at Preservation Hall, working to preserve, catalog and exhibit 60+ years of jazz history related to the historic French Quarter venue and the musicians who have played there.

“I create artwork to further understand myself and my ancestors. I focus on retelling stories that challenge misrepresented histories of individuals from the African Diaspora. I work across alternative photography processes, installation, and the exploration of found material,” says Maynard.

NIC[O] BRIERRE AZIZ

Nic[o] Brierre Aziz is a Haitian-New Orleanian interdisciplinary artist and curator born and raised in New Orleans, LA. His current practice is deeply community focused and rooted around the utilization of underdiscussed personal and collective histories to reimagine the future. His work is also very centered around the Caribbean Diaspora and he is very interested in Blackness as an experience, construct and capitalist tool. He has worked extensively leading community engaged projects throughout New Orleans with entities such as the Office of Mayor Mitch Landrieu, Antenna, The Joan Mitchell Center, the Arts Council of New Orleans, Prospect and most recently the New Orleans Museum of Art. He is also the manager of the Haitian Cultural Legacy Collection, a collection of over 400 artworks started by his maternal grandfather in 1944. He has contributed to publications such as HuffPost, Terremoto and Hyperallergic and his work has been featured by The Oxford American, The Associated Press and The Alternative UK. He is also the recipient of several artist residencies and fellowships and most recently was selected as a 2020 Andy Warhol Foundation Curatorial Fellow and a 2021 Joan Mitchell Center Artist-in-Residence. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from Morehouse College, a Master of Science degree from The University of Manchester (UK) and will be pursuing a Master of Fine Arts Degree with a concentration in Sculpture from the Yale University School of Art starting in Fall 2023.