Collection: Gentilly Resilience District
The purpose of the Gentilly Resilience District public art project is to build awareness about the city’s water infrastructure and to catalyze action surrounding environmental challenges. The project brings together visual artists working in a variety of mediums— including painting, sculpture, glass, mosaic, and digital arts—to explore urban water challenges and co-create public art projects with Gentilly neighborhood residents.
Water Leaders Institute organized in-person and virtual tours of green infrastructure in parks, the drainage pump station and canal systems, regional flood control structures, and more. Artists also learned from urban designers, landscape architects, and engineers about the best practices of integrating public art into parks, rain gardens, and bioswales. Residents were engaged in the design process through extensive community engagement and participation in the selection committee. The COVID-19 pandemic required artists and residents to engage in novel ways, including through an online Meet the Artists series, an interactive packet of arts activities that went to every resident, and a temporary outdoor exhibition.
The result will be seven public art projects situated in parks, rain gardens, and at the London Avenue Canal levee breach. Each artwork approaches the topic of “living with water” from a unique and thoughtful perspective, including exploring the city’s historic relationship with water, the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the importance of native plants, the negative impact of plastic waste, and the need for intergenerational stewardship of our environment. Collectively, the artwork will demonstrate the power of art to spark imagination and dialogue about the existential question of how New Orleans will address the environmental challenges it faces.
The $141 million HUD-funded Gentilly Resilience District is a combination of efforts across the Gentilly neighborhood that are designed to reduce flood risk, slow land subsidence, improve energy reliability, and encourage neighborhood revitalization. This project will be a model for how other neighborhoods in New Orleans and across the region and country can adapt to thrive in a changing environment—and how artists can play a central role in that change.