Prospect One Art Installations

Artists of Public Memory is a new public art commission that invites Louisiana artists to share their visions of how monuments and collective memories can appear and function in our landscape, society, and public space. This initiative marks the first time Prospect New Orleans has invited Louisiana-based curators and cultural organizations to nominate artists for a public art commission. Innovation and creativity are the bedrock of both art and engineering, and Batture has been honored to be involved in the design and civil engineering of three of the art pieces.

Abolition Playground brings attention to sites of white supremacist systems of control while empowering counter-narratives of abolition and play. The project consists of a series of sculptural installations that give physical form to the institutional ramifications of racism and subsequent modes of survival and resistance. The piece is located on Norman C. Francis Parkway, situated between Bienville and Canal St. from September 2023 – March 2024.

About the artist: kai lumumba barrow (b. 1959, Chicago) is a self-taught artist and founder of Gallery of the Streets, a national network of artists, activists, and scholars who work at the nexus of art, political education, social change and community engagement.

Batture’s contribution: Batture provided the structural foundation design for the installed art pieces.

The Memoirs of the Lower 9th Ward sculpture features a remarkable collection of thirty-six photographs depicting the visual history of the community over four decades. The sculpture’s title pays tribute to a neighborhood that emerged from the unwavering efforts of working-class Black residents, benevolent organizations, mutual aid societies, educators, and religious leaders to establish a community of their own. The piece is open to the public through June 2024 at the 5400 block of N. Claiborne Ave located at the neutral ground in between Andry St. and Flood St.

About the artists: Chandra McCormick (b. 1957) and Keith Calhoun (b. 1955) are artists, and documentary photographers, living and working in New Orleans. McCormick and Calhoun use their cameras to provide visual testimony to the lived experiences of Black life in the U.S. South. Their images bear witness to the social realities of Black life—historicizing and archiving the rich, unique traditions and deep-rooted attributes of Louisiana culture and the Black experience.

Batture’s contribution: Batture provided the steel framing review for this piece.

Nanih Bvlbancha: an Indigenous Earthwork will serve to honor our ancestors and anchor our future. Nanih is a Chahta (Choctaw) word for hill or mountain, and is commonly used to describe our Ancestor’s earthen mound architecture, and Bvlbancha means “place of babbling tongues,” or “place of many languages” in Chahta (Choctaw), and is the only recorded pre-colonial name for the land that is now known as New Orleans. Many rivers have carried sediments and people here for millenia. This name is used to honor this rich history and diversity that continues to this day! The piece will be located on the Lafitte Greenway between N Galvez and N Prieur. The mound was created by artists Dr. Tammy Greer, Jenna Mae, Ozone 504, Virginia Richard, and Monique Verdin.

Batture’s contribution: Batture provided the engineering for the soil reinforcement in addition to surveying services for permitting of this piece. The Civil Engineering team at Batture helped bring the Mound to fruition by working with the artists and the archeology team from Prospect New Orleans on an engineered soil solution, layers of geotexile fabrics, to provide slope stability for the Mound.