Art, Climate Change, and the Louisiana Landscape

In South Louisiana, climate change is more than conceptual: it is the removal of entire towns from the map, the ever-increasing flash flood warnings on our cell phones, and the precarity of our drinking water. Our community’s well-being is challenged and changed every time another variation of environmental disaster occurs, provoking an ever-evolving response from artists who live and work here. Responding to climate change requires re-thinking artistic form entirely. What do those forms look, sound, feel like? Multidisciplinary artists from across Louisiana will discuss the creative approaches they take to responding to a landscape equally rooted in change and tradition. Join Bruce "Sunpie" Barnes, Jack Bedell, Hali Dardar, Frank Relle, and Brad Richard for a conversation curated and moderated by Stacey Balkun.

Free and open to the public; donations gratefully accepted. Donations support One Book One New Orleans' year-round work.

This event is sponsored by the Historic New Orleans Collection.

The Andre Cailloux Center for Performing Arts and Cultural Justice is accessible to community members who require mobility-related ADA accommodations. Parking near the venue is free, though somewhat limited. The nearest RTA stop is at N. Broad and Columbus.

MEET THE PANELISTS

Stacey Balkun is the author of Sweetbitter and co-editor of Fiolet & Wing. Winner of a PEN America grant, her work appears in Best New Poets, Mississippi Review, and Pleiades, among anthologies and journals. She holds a PhD from the University of Mississippi, Oxford and teaches creative writing online at The Poetry Barn and at the University of New Orleans.

Bruce Sunpie Barnes is a multi instrumental musician, book author, photographer, Big Chief of the Northside Skull and Bone Gang, film actor, who defines his musical style as Afro-Louisiana music. Sunpie is a former Park Ranger with the National Park Service, former High School Biology teacher, former Professional Football player and current 23 year member of the Black Men of Labor Social Aid and Pleasure Club.

Jack B. Bedell is Professor of English at Southeastern Louisiana University where he also edits Louisiana Literature and directs the Louisiana Literature Press. Jack’s work has appeared in HAD, Heavy Feather, Brawl Lit, Moist, and other journals. He’s also had pieces included in Best Microfiction and Best Spiritual Literature. His latest collection is Ghost Forest (Mercer University Press, 2024). He served as Louisiana Poet Laureate 2017-2019.

Hali Dardar operates on a spectrum of multi-media artist to business administration. Some relatable dots on that gradient are live stream production, community cultivation, archive design, and memory studies. She is the co-founder of the Houma Language Project, and Bvlbancha Public access. Current work happens with Art Transit Authority, and past work includes Smithsonian Language Vitality Initiatives, Shift Collective, and Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.

Brad Richard’s most recent book is Turned Earth (Louisiana State University Press, 2025). He is also the author of Habitations (Portals Press, 2000), Motion Studies (The Word Works, 2011), Butcher’s Sugar (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2012), Parasite Kingdom (The Word Works, 2019). A second edition of Motion Studies, with additional poems and a foreword by Skye Jackson, was published by The Word Works in March, 2025. His 2022 chapbook, In Place, was chosen for the Robin Becker Series from Seven Kitchens Press. He has taught creative writing at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, The Willow School (whose creative writing program he founded and directed), Louisiana State University, and Tulane University, and for the Kenyon Review summer workshops. Series editor of the Hilary Tham Capital Collection from The Word Works, he lives, writes, and gardens in New Orleans. More at bradrichard.org.

FRANK RELLE PHOTO AND BIO COMING SOON!

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher One Book One New Orleans