Chandra McCormick and Keith Calhoun:
Memoirs of the Lower 9th Ward
December 9, 2023-June 2024
Installation view of Memoirs of the Lower 9th Ward. Photograph by Alex Marks.
Memoirs of the Lower 9th Ward is an Artists of Public Memory Commission by New Orleans based artists Chandra McCormick and Keith Calhoun. The unveiling took place on Saturday, December 9, 2023, and the installation is on view on the 5400 block of N. Claiborne Ave located at the neutral ground in between Andry St. and Flood St (29.966474, -90.016063), from December 2023 through June 2024.
About the Installation
Artists and documentary photographers Chandra McCormick and Keith Calhoun’s collaborative public art project, Memoirs of the Lower 9th Ward, challenges conventional structures of remembrance, symbols of shared memory, and our understanding of who or what should be memorialized and how in public spaces.
Reflecting over forty years of photographic documentation of the Lower 9th Ward, McCormick and Calhoun’s sculpture of public memory takes the shape of a house in photographic form, symbolically gesturing to the neighborhood’s high rates of Black homeownership and the intergenerational bonds of a community that has transcended years of geographic isolation and municipal neglect. The sculpture’s title serves as a monument to the rich history and enduring spirit of the community, emphasizing the importance of valuing and investing in the preservation of Black communities.
Located on the neutral grounds in the 5400 block of N. Claiborne Avenue, 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. Their sacrifices are historically etched in the landscape of the community and are the foundation upon which it stands today. Memoirs honor the shared memories of a community that once was and still is—featuring iconic images of musicians, artists, Black Masking Indians, spiritual ceremonies, neighborhood residents, churches, and post-Hurricane Katrina damage.
Installation view of Memoirs of the Lower 9th Ward. Photograph by Alex Marks.
Memoirs depicts everyday life in the community beginning in the early 1980s, with residents strolling along Caffin Avenue and Galvez Street, Ms. Dora Lee sitting with her pipe, Ms. Watson sewing at Watson Cleaners, Boogie Bill Webb playing music on his front porch, and women of Holy Family Spiritual Church engaging in ceremony. The photos also showcase significant moments in the community’s history, including residents hanging out at Jr’s Bar at the levee, Mr. Hebert Gettridge’s return home after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the Lady Divas’ Social Aid & Pleasure Club stepping out after the storm. Other highlights include Fats Domino sitting on his porch with his neighbors, the 2020 Martin Luther King, Jr. High School graduates celebrating their achievements, and a portrait of Greater Little Zion Baptist Church members. Together, these images and others honor the public memory of the Lower 9th Ward, the people who shaped its existence, those who remain, and those who are committed to its future.
The sculpture is an incredible testament to the fortitude of a community that has endured decades of hardship and neglect. McCormick and Calhoun’s work is a powerful reminder that public art can be much more than just a decorative feature. Memoirs challenges us to move beyond singular figures and think critically about our shared history, values, and dreams for the future.
Memoirs of the Lower 9th Ward will be open for public engagement through June 2024 at the neutral ground on N. Claiborne Ave between Andry St. and Flood St. (29.966474, -90.016063).
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. Since the early 1980s, McCormick and Calhoun have engaged photography as a site of social activism—documenting, illuminating, and conveying the struggles and celebrations of the Black American experience. Together they have chronicled religious ceremonies, cultural traditions, and visual histories of the Lower 9th Ward. 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.
McCormick and Calhoun have received numerous awards for their photographic work, which has been widely cited and exhibited, including in Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration (2020-2021) at MoMA PS1, We No Longer Consider Them Damaged (2020) at the Flaten Art Museum at St. Olaf College, Labor Studies (2018) at the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, the 56th International Venice Biennale (2015), and Prospect 3: Notes for Now (2014-15).
McCormick and Calhoun’s work has been shown at the Brooklyn Museum, New York City; Louisiana State Museum, New Orleans; Harvard University Art Gallery Collection, Cambridge; the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans; Aperture Gallery, New York City; Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, and the New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans. Their work has also been featured in Aperture Magazine, National Geographic, Art in America, Smithsonian Magazine, Hyperallergic, Muse Magazine, Art Review, CBS Sunday Morning, and PBS Jim Lear NewsHour.