From 2019 to May 2025, Arts New Orleans partnered with Canal Place Shopping Center to offer free studio and exhibition space in a retail storefront within the center. Over the course of the program, we featured 21 local artists who transformed the space into a dynamic hub of creativity. Through six-month residencies, SALON artists activated both their studios and other areas throughout the center with open studio tours, exhibitions, performances, workshops, and more. We are deeply grateful to each of the artists whose vision and presence made SALON a vibrant part of the New Orleans arts community.

In 17th-century France, the salon was conceived for elite society as a site for royally sanctioned painting and sculpture exhibitions. By the 19th century, radical and censored artists challenged these established spaces with their own counter-salons, favoring rebellion, experimentation, and modernity. As a nod to the past positioned in the future, SALON was a space for ideas and instincts to run wild, for relinquishing our minds to creative visitation and possibility, and for the curious and the questioning to gather earnestly in common intrigue. SALON featured six clean, white-walled studios of varied sizes, a communal workshop space, and a gallery for exhibitions — all free of charge to artists. This unusual collaboration came at a time when affordable studio space was becoming increasingly scarce in New Orleans. Through dedicated, comfortable work space, SALON provided a sanctuary for resident artists to create and grow. As a new and unconventional residency model, SALON promoted collaborative practice through multidisciplinary artist engagement and offered programmatic opportunities in a space that, by its nature, was experimental.