Downtown Lafayette Louisiana

Acadiana Center for the Arts (“AcA”) in downtown Lafayette, Louisiana was a place that we had wanted to explore during our last visit to the area last Autumn. Unfortunately we ran out of time. So we made it a point to go there while in Lafayette in November on our way to Galveston Island TX.

A colorfully painted transformer box in red, green and yellow in Downtown Lafayette Louisiana

Welcome to Downtown Lafayette Louisiana

Acadiana Center for the Arts

The mission of AcA is fostering art and culture in Acadiana. AcA was founded in 1975 as a community supported nonprofit organization. It didn’t take long for it to develop into a major force by shaping the future of public education and community development in southern Louisiana.

AcA encourages the creation of new works of art, exhibits, festivals, performances, and public art across an eight-parish region that includes Acadia, Evangeline, Iberia, Lafayette, St. Landry, St. Martin, St. Mary, and Vermilion Parishes.

As an artist myself, one of the things I love most about AcA is that it aims to bring equitable access to the arts and supports fair compensation of artists. On average, they serve over 300,000 people annually and provides fair compensation to 2,700 artists.

AcA merged with the Performing Arts Society of Acadiana

In 2013, the AcA merged with the Performing Arts Society of Acadiana (“PASA”) because of their similar missions. PACA’s mission was to educate, inspire, entertain, and culturally enrich the people of south Louisiana by providing local access to a diverse range of performing arts. This merger supported the vision of both organizations and provided much needed support to PASA’s programs. Founded in 1989, PASA had served as a leading voice in the performing arts in south Louisiana for close to three decades.

Exhibits

The most unique and weird exhibit was by Brandon Ballengée. He is an American, who was born in 1974, and is a visual artist, biologist and environmental educator based in Louisiana.

Ballengée is known for creating artworks that bridge his varied disciplines and are inspired from his ecological field and laboratory research. Since 1996, a central investigation focus has been the occurrence of developmental deformities and population declines among amphibians and other ectothermic vertebrates.

A pyramid of specimens in glass jars on display in Downtown Lafayette Louisiana

COLLAPSE by Brandon Ballengée

Collapse, created in December 2010, was created in scientific collaboration with Todd Gardner, Jack Rudloe and Peter Warny. This was, perhaps, the most mesmerizing installation that I have ever seen. It was beautiful and grotesque at the same time!

A few specimen jars filled with creatures from the Gulf of Mexico.

Closeup of COLLAPSE at the AcA in Downtown Lafayette Louisiana

Collapse is a sculptural response to the global crisis for the world’s fisheries. Highlighting the of unraveling the Gulf of Mexico’s food-chain following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. This pyramid of 26,162 preserved specimens represents 370 species of fish and other aquatic organisms collected from the Gulf Coast, a region of diverse fish species and of socio-economic importance. The pyramidal installation references the fragile interrelationships between aquatic species in the Gulf food chain. Empty jars represent species in decline or those that have already been lost to extinction. Collapse is a sculptural sketch that represents the Gulf of Mexico food chain starting with smaller life forms working its way up to the top with large predators.

A picture of a purple stained catfish at AcA in Downtown Lafayette Louisiana

Diligence, a unique photo of a catfish printed on canvas

Diligence, 2020-2021, is a unique giclée print of the Paraná Sailfin catfish. This fish is native to the central and southern Americas and has been found in the Bruffalo Bayous systems in Houston, TX since 2001. In urban waterways like the Buffalo Bayou, excess nutrients from yard run-off and organic pollutants create an excess algal growth. This type of catfish diligently clean rocks and bayou substrate by eating the algae. These catfish and other members of their family have been widely introduced to waterways to control algae and from the pet trade where they are sold as “algae eaters”.

This specimen was gifted to Brandon Ballengée by biologist Peter R. Warny, a co-creator of Collapse. He then cleaned the specimen and stained it. Later he photographed it at his studio at Atelier de la Nature, in Amaudville, Louisiana.

Birds and Tortoises Exhibit

Fantasy II in Exile by Jacob Todd Broussard and Emile Mausner was my favorite of the many varied exhibits at AcA. It was filled with colorful and whimsical art. It just brought such joy, which was definitely needed after the thought provoking Collapse exhibit. It was the perfect ending to our art filled day in Downtown Lafayette Louisiana.