In honor of Indigenous Peoples Day, the Newcomb Art Museum in partnership with the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South will host a conversation between indigenous artist Monique Verdin, a citizen of the Houma Nation, director of the Land Memory Bank & Seed Exchange and a member of the Another Gulf Is Possible Collaborative, and Rachel Breunlin, Co-founder and Director of the Neighborhood Story Project, which will be filmed in an historic location. Anchored from work in NOT Supposed 2 BE Here and the Toni Morrison quote regarding water as memory, the two will discuss the planetary “power point” of the Mississippi River where it enters the Gulf of Mexico, as detailed in Verdin’s recent book “Return to Yakni Chitto: Houma Migrations.” Like water and good conversations, expect a meandering flow, actively recalling the past to fulfill the needs of the present while channeling the future and the horizontal point we must be prepared, eventually, to meet. The talk will feature a special reading by Raymond “Moose” Jackson.

Along with the talk, Newcomb Art Museum and the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South will present a pop-up exhibition – Return to Yakni Chitto by Monique Verdin featuring photographic panels and text commissioned by the Neighborhood Story Project – in the first floor of the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library from October 7 through 14. Click for more details about how to explore this incredible project.