June 14 - July 6, 2025
Opening reception on Saturday, June 4th 6-10pm
Gallery open hours are Saturdays and Sundays, 12-5pm. & by appointment
Programming This Month
Saturday June 14th, 6-10pm
Opening Reception, Second Saturdays
Wednesday, June 18th 6:30pm
Celebrating 5 Years of Community-Powered Stories
You’re invited to Lede New Orleans’ official birthday celebration! Join us on June 18 at 6:30 PM for an evening of food, drinks, community & storytelling. RSVP via this link and check out the flier above for more details.
Friday, June 27th, 7:30pm
POETry as you MIGHT
A Poetry Night at The Front
Sunday, June 29th, 2-3:30pm
Tignon Talk
Join us to discuss the history of oppressive laws around cultural expression, and the power of cultural resistance through headwrapping fashion. We will have a lecture from Dr. Camille Dantzler, Xavier University Assistant Professor, from the Department of African American and Diaspora Studies. She will lecture on Tignon laws and the legacies of Black Hair Freedomways as anti colonial resistance to future erasure. Followed by a head wrap demo and artist talk by Jemima Joel.We will close with a musical performance by Jemima Joel and The Gaias. Light refreshments.
Room 1
Andy Young, Collage | Herbert Kearny, Drawing | Herbert Kearny, Drawing | Marcella Singleton, Collage | Marcella Singleton, Collage (detail) | Marcella Singleton, Sculpture | Chris Sullivan, Photo | Chris Sullivan, Photo
P O E T r y as you MIGHT
-ated by Lark Mattingly and anderson funk
Visual contributions by: Andy Young, Chris Sullivan, Marcella Singleton, Herbert Kearny, Gina Ferrara, A Scribe Called Quess, Jessica Kinnison, Jonathan Penton, Raina Zelinsky, Dusty Santamaria, anderson funk, and Lark Mattingly.
Poetry Hotline contributions from many more!
P O E T r y as you MIGHT is an art show filled by poets. What will the poets decide to collect? What will the poets decide to show? What have the poets painted? What have they drawn? The poet is imaginative in unique ways.
The blank walls mimic the blank page, but these poets have more than pens, more than words this time. The poets are here, brace for eloquence, will you ask them about their art?
Call the Poetry Hotline: (504) 584 4799
Room 2
Five Years Forward
Lede New Orleans Alumni
Mandy Ortiz, Curation Support
"Five Years Forward" is a multimedia exhibit honoring the people and places that have shaped our storytelling journey at Lede New Orleans.
This anniversary showcase revisits the powerful themes explored through our Community Reporting Fellowship—food justice, mental wellness, Black maternal health, greenspace accessibility, prison abolition, and youth incarceration—and highlights how our fellows have elevated local voices and narratives too often left out of mainstream media. Through photography, audio, print, and interactive displays, the exhibit traces Lede’s evolution from a bold idea into a living media hub grounded in learning and collective care.
More than a retrospective, "Five Years Forward" offers a vision for the future of storytelling in New Orleans—where journalism is a tool for liberation, truth-telling is a shared responsibility, and every voice has a place at the table.
This showcase is a dedication—and a thank you—to the more than 40 Lede New Orleans alumni who have carried these stories forward.
RoomS 3 & 4
Jemima Joél, Fashion Mama: Hiding, acrylic on wood canvas, 18x18in, 2024 | Jemima Joél, Take Me to the River: Troubled Waters, acrylic on wood canvas, 16x18in, 2025 | Jemima Joél, Rose Roulette, acrylic on wood canvas, 24x24in, 2024
Time of the Tignon
Jemima Joél
featured artist, Tracey Elizabeth, Aaye Creates doing event photography/capturing and archiving visitors in head attire
This series is a collection of black folk art that explores different narratives of the African diaspora, enslaved and freed during the French (1718-1763) and Spanish Colonialism (1763-1803) period in New Orleans. During the Spanish colonialism period, the Tignon edict was put into place for three reasons: to decrease the plaçage system, to differentiate a slave class, and to oppress hair expression. In 1786, this informal law had the intention to keep black women, freed and enslaved, visually silent. Hair expression brought on the fear that the presence of free black women appeared too closely to white women, disrupting social order. Their beauty through hair expression was seen as a threat to white women when it came to white men involving themselves in plaçage.
Free and enslaved women had to wrap their heads to be seen as the “slave class” because of their covered hair and brown skin. But, freed women were able to create an idea of luxury and style within their wraps as an act of resistance, that enslaved women were not able to access as rapidly. Free women wrapped their tignons high, wrapped in intricate ties, jewels, and flowers. Tignons created a new style and fashion in New Orleans, that is still practiced today.
I find it interesting how much white colonial rules have tried to control and regulate the practices of blackness. And in every instance, black folk have always come out of the situation having created even more beauty and culture. We have always been a cultural people from the beginning of time when we were unmoved, so what did white oppressors think they were going to accomplish just because we were moved?
Black folk in America have gone through so much, that in the modern day, we are still exploring how complex these stories are. That is why I am using this exhibition to tell old stories with a modern lens. I want us to stay in constant conversation with our past. Some of the struggles we have faced historically are still prevalent today. These paintings can help us to examine our experiences, leaving us feeling more validated knowing how deeply rooted we are. In this collection, I explore the struggles and joys of societal standards of beauty, realities of black motherhood, rebellion and resistance to practice freedom and love, hypocrisy amongst American ideals, and the blinded feeling of desire.
Stylistically in my work, people can be seen larger than the architecture behind them, to let the viewers know it is the people who are the main subject. The architecture is intentional to know where a narrative could unfold in New Orleans. The dress is historical, but also imaginative, giving modern flares. Story pieces are meant to let my viewers know I am always focused on telling our stories. No matter how long, or difficult, it can be told visually.
I want my viewers to know that white people and their actions have never been at the forefront of our lives. Many times the institutions and micro-aggressions from the white body can feel faceless; it’s a feeling. And exploring the effect it has on us, is more important than the who and the why.
Through the violence, we’ve faced against whiteness, our resilience and resistance have always remained strong. Each of these pieces has myself and other New Orleanians that I know in them. I keep and portray their stories with love and care.
Jemima Joél (New Orleans, LA, b. 1999) is a singer, visual artist, writer, and activist. She began learning art in high school at Sophie B. Wright Charter School, where she graduated in 2017. She then went on to study Sociology and African American Studies at Loyola University, where she received a Bachelor’s degree in Social Science in 2021. After selling art independently for years, she joined The Front Gallery in 2025. Joél discovered her love for singing growing up alongside her mother and sister singing at her childhood home Baptist church in Algiers. She has performed at musical venues in the city, such as Dew Drop Inn, The Barnett Hotel, and The Broad Theatre. She writes her own song lyrics. She sings Neo-Soul, RnB, Gospel, and Jazz. She has released over six original songs and has had her local TV debut on WWL-TV Morning News in 2024.
www.thewomanwhosingsandpaints.com
Aaye Creates - Tracey Elizabeth Music, Congolese Princess, Culture Bearer, Artist, Activist, and Alchemist is a multidisciplinary creative; retired high school educator, B.S. Kinesiology, NREMT, CPhT. Currently working with new mothers, providing doula services. Singing and performing since 1988; her talents include singing, songwriting, graphic design, set design, photography, acting, storytelling, modeling, musician playing guitar, djembe, Cajon, bells, Ṣẹ̀kẹ̀rẹ̀, kalimba, and executive producer. Aaye’s passion lies in honoring and celebrating the benevolent ancestors who preceded her. Aaye Creates opportunities for art-inspired collaborations across various disciplines. Her first recording project, “Presence And Precarity,” was created and recorded for Preservation Hall Foundation Archives to honor the art exhibition “Presence & Precarity.” Last summer release, “Delta Bound,” inspired by the legendary King of TREME, Shannon Powell, and Kevin Lewis. Many performance venues include: Preservation Hall, Music Box Village, The Dew Drop Inn, The Barnett, Toulouse Theatre, The Royal Frenchmen, Jazz Fest, French Quarter Fest, and many more. Aaye’s talents have been recognized in various media outlets. She has been featured in numerous movies, network TV series, and plays. Most recently being featured on a recording project for Japan through Haruka Kikuchi, a talented trombonist. This project honors the ancestors of Hansen’s Disease in Carville, Louisiana.