Prospect New Orleans Announces Partnership With The New Orleans African American Museum

Prospect New Orleans has announced that its Hancock Whitney Welcome Center for P.5 will be sited at the New Orleans African American Museum. The P.5 Hancock Whitney Welcome Center is part of a broad partnership between Prospect and NOAAM during the Prospect.5 cycle that also includes joint programming and the use of NOAAM as an exhibition venue for multiple Prospect.5 artists.

"Prospect's Welcome Center is where most people begin their Prospect experience, where people ground themselves. For that reason, we wanted to work with NOAAM. The history, the architecture, the Treme neighborhood itself and its histories of craft and labor, and the programming happening on NOAAM's campus all speak to larger narratives that are embedded within Prospect.5. It's the ideal point of entry," said Nick Stillman, Executive Director of Prospect New Orleans.

The New Orleans African American Museum was founded in 1996 and was a Prospect venue in each of the first three Prospect exhibitions. The multi-building campus is known for its distinctive Creole architecture within the Treme neighborhood.

"At the New Orleans African American Museum, we are thrilled to continue our work of bridging the gap between the history of black New Orleans and the contemporary diasporic contributions as an integral part of Prospect.5. We look forward to welcoming all of the P.5 visitors into the city of New Orleans and grounding them in the history of the Treme neighborhood, the oldest neighborhood of free people of color in the country. So much of the neighborhood contextualizes the visitor experience for the rest of what they will see and experience during Prospect.5.

In a rapidly changing city, triennials provide an opportunity for artists to respond to the landscape, histories, and future possibilities of a place. At the Hancock Whitney P.5 Welcome Center, visitors will learn about the Meilleur-Goldthwaire House which was owned by a black woman in the 1800s, the brickyard that provided bricks for many of the French Quarter buildings, and the five-thousand-year-old indigenous Chitamacha trail that runs through the campus, now known as Governor Nicholls Street. There will be so much to learn, exchange, and become inspired by," said Gia M. Hamilton, Executive Director and Chief Curator of the New Orleans African American Museum in Treme.

"Hancock Whitney is thrilled to work with the New Orleans African American Museum to host visitors as they kick off their P.5 experience," said Liz Hefler, Senior Vice President, Hancock Whitney. "The Treme neighborhood has long been the center of so much of our region's cultural activity and we are honored for people to experience history and art at the Museum."

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