The Unending Stream: Chapter I

The Unending Stream is a two-part exhibition that showcases the thriving community of photographers in New Orleans. The title of the exhibition pays homage to a Clarence John Laughlin photograph of the same title, which is a part of the permanent collection at Ogden Museum of Southern Art. Laughlin’s seminal work, created between the 1930s and 1950s, is an important chapter in the long-storied relationship between New Orleans and photography. Following in his visionary footsteps, this exhibition focuses on emerging and underrepresented photographers who continue to focus on the South through poetic imagery. These photographers are visually defining the Crescent City in the twenty-first century. The Unending Stream celebrates the city of New Orleans’ continuing role as one of America’s most important cultural capitals while also highlighting the role that the arts have played in revitalizing the region for the past twenty years since Hurricane Katrina.

The Unending Stream features works by photographers who explore themes similar to Laughlin’s of memory, decay and the supernatural, capturing mysterious beauty and forgotten places. Themes of place, time, family and identity are also woven within the exhibition. Each photographer brings a contemporary twist to the exhibition, creating work that provokes thought and conjures emotion. The first chapter of The Unending Stream exhibition features six photographers (Trenity Thomas, Kevin Kline, Jacob Mitchell, Brittany Markert, Thom Bennett and Tiffany Smith) who work in both analogue and digital photography.

Trenity Thomas fuses art and fashion in his colorful portraits made against an urban background; Kevin Kline documents the gritty streets of his Bywater neighborhood in the midst of gentrification; Jacob Mitchell uses the computer to sublimely manipulate his hyper-colored architectural studies; Brittany Markert constructs sensual and psychological  portraits that blend beauty and horror; Thom Bennett captures with a panorama camera the flatlands between New Orleans and Acadiana; and Tiffany Smith uses self-portraiture to explore the Caribbean diaspora.

New Orleans has been both muse and home to some of the most important and celebrated photographers of the ninetieth and twentieth century. The Unending Stream exhibition sheds light on the current trajectory of photography being created in New Orleans today.