A Current of Collaboration Beyond Uptown

At the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South (NOCGS) in the School of Liberal Arts at Tulane, directors Rebecca Snedeker and Denise Frazier develop their programming around the belief that the more we understand where we are, the more fully we can engage in cultivating a collective destiny—our future and survival in this region.

“That survival,” says Frazier, “is intrinsically linked to valuing each other as human beings, appreciating both our individual and shared humanity, determining how we can collaborate, effectively communicating with one other—and then relating and applying all of these components to our knowledge building and education.”

NEW ORLEANS CENTER FOR THE GULF SOUTH ASSISTANT DIRECTOR AND NATIVE NEW ORLEANIAN DENISE FRAZIER HAS AN INTERDISCIPLINARY PHD IN LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES AND IS A LIFELONG MUSICIAN AND PERFORMANCE ARTIST; SHE IS A MEMBER OF THE MUSIC ENSEMBLE LES CENELLES AND THEATRE COMPANY GOAT IN THE ROAD

Much of NOCGS’s collaborative work focuses on understanding the Gulf South region, its place in the world, and its relevance in global climate change research. In 2018, NOCGS entered a partnership with the Haus der Kulturen der Welt and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, on an ongoing, international, interdisciplinary project called the Anthropocene Curriculum. The term Anthropocene is intended to be a useful concept that proposes our present geological era to be the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment. NOCGS joined this project by co-organizing and hosting the week-long Anthropocene River Campus at Tulane, where participants from 30 countries explored social, political, economic, and ecological topics through collaborative research, immersive site-based experiences, and collective discourse.

The ideology of the center—as well as the intrinsic nature of its work—encourages experimental programming alongside more traditional symposia and on-campus lectures. Programming often includes immersive, place-based learning experiences that instigate research on the built and natural environment of the Gulf South region. NOCGS supports several research fellowships for scholars and artists, as well as a biennial Gulf South Writer in the Woods position, a collaboration between the center and A Studio in the Woods. Through collaboratively-taught courses and the Third Coast Residential Program, NOCGS partners with environmental activist and cultural organizations across New Orleans and the Gulf South, as well as other Tulane entities, to give students experiences that focus on understanding how culture and environment locally intertwine, and to address the ways in which students’ academic and professional goals can actively contribute to the interests of our surrounding community, and the university’s participation in their advancement.

CLARK EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE NEW ORLEANS CENTER FOR THE GULF SOUTH REBECCA SNEDEKER IS AN EMMY AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER; SHE IS ALSO THE CO- DIRECTOR OF A BOOK PROJECT WITH OVER 40 CONTRIBUTING WRITERS, ARTISTS, CARTOGRAPHERS, AND RESEARCHERS, AND HAS SERVED ON THE STEERING COMMITTEE OF NEW DAY FILMS, A 50-YEAR-OLD CO-OP OF INDEPENDENT FILMMAKERS DISTRIBUTING THEIR WORK TOGETHER AS A COLLECTIVE

Within all its work, NOCGS strives to create spaces to brainstorm, cooperate, and learn together, approaching each experience with Snedeker’s provocation: “Dare to look around. Dare to look within.” As interdisciplinary artists themselves, its directors are no strangers to collaboration. They encourage the staging of settings where scholars, artists and knowledge-bearers outside of academia can communicate across areas of expertise and gain deeper understandings of pressing, complex problems—such as how climate change and environmental racism are impacting Southern Louisiana and the world. This work is not always easy, and friction is bound to occur, but it is a natural and often productive dynamic.

As Snedeker explains, “We’re accustomed to, and skilled in, working with groups of people and ensembles in a variety of ways, and we've brought our willingness to address uncomfortable tensions to our research and our programming—and allowed it to inform the center’s practices.”

Deeply collaborative work requires trust-building, intense communication, self-reflection, compassion, understanding and grace. Over time, the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South has nurtured a diverse constellation of voices and explored sites through which they create offerings that impact the lives of many and—significantly—the future of our region.