Rivers Institute for Contemporary Art & Thought (Rivers) is a non-profit institute for research and publishing, exhibitions and convenings on art of the global diaspora. Based in New Orleans, Rivers recognizes art as forms of thought shaped by geographic, social, political, environmental, and economic histories and commits to research at the confluence of diverse bodies of knowledge. Their perspective, informed by both long-rootedness and displacement, confers the institute with a reverence for what has long gone unnoticed, what is precarious, and what cannot hold. Rivers affirms exchange and estrangement as crucial tools for radical discovery and empathy. They learn from artists who share in this conviction and provide a context and support for their research and practices.
Rivers Institute for Contemporary Art & Thought
ivers Institute for Contemporary Art & Thought’s opening night performance with artist Helen Cammock in support of the exhibition Helen Cammock: I Will Keep My Soul at U.N.O. St. Claude Gallery, October 2023, New Orleans, LA. Photo: Alex Marks.
Rivers Institute for Contemporary Art & Thought’s public performance with Baba Luther Gray and the musical ensemble ‘Les Cenelles,’ in support of our year-long convening, ‘Confluence: The Percussive,’ November 2023, New Orleans, LA. Photo: Alex Marks.
Rivers Institute for Contemporary Art & Thought’s annual dinner and gathering of with participants of ‘The Prepared Table,’ May 2023, New Orleans, LA. Photo: Alex Marks.
Amistad-Rivers Artist-in-Residence Public Lecture with curator Amal Khalaf and artist Alia Farid in conversation at The Albert & Tina Small Center at Tulane University, August 2023, New Orleans, LA. Photo: Alex Marks.
Installation image of archival materials presented in the exhibition Tina Girouard: SIGN-IN, organized and curated by Rivers Institute for Contemporary Art & Thought at Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA. Photo: Alex Marks.
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“The terrific range of project proposals we receive each year speaks to the mobile and porous disciplinary boundaries of contemporary art practice, and to the rich and inventive ways writers approach art today. They are alert to the urgent need to expand the conventions of art history and criticism with ideas from other discourses, such as black studies, transnational and diaspora studies, gender and women’s studies, and LGBT studies. The work of lesser known and overlooked artists and art communities continues to be mined, with writers articulating new ways to counter the striking imbalances of race, class and gender that continue to affect the arts and the culture industry.”