Next Bayou Culture Gathering is in person! Friday, March 15-16, 2024

The Bayou Culture Collaborative offers a way to connect anyone interested in the intersection of traditional culture, the arts, and science in the face of Louisiana’s land loss and the impact of migrations upon our culture in the coming years and those seeking strategies to help ensure Louisiana’s cultural traditions are passed onto future generations.

The next Bayou Culture Collaborative is in person at the LFS annual meeting March 15-16, 2024 . See the preliminary program here.

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Sign-on to the BCC Position Statement

We invite you or your organization to sign-on to the position statement either as an individual or as an organization. This position aligns with LA SAFE‘s strategy 5 and NOAA’s Theory of Change: Causal Pathways 1, 2, 3, and 4 cited below.

The Bayou Culture Collaborative Position Statement is a starting point and living tool. It is not a comprehensive policy vision, nor does it promote specific adaptation or management strategies. We nonetheless believe in the urgent need to explore the issues, consider the options, and ultimately make recommendations to state and local leadership that center the people and cultures of Louisiana. We also acknowledge the tremendous challenges of finding balance, common ground, and synergy in this endeavor. 

Individuals may include their affiliation for descriptive purposes and not imply that the organization has officially signed-on in support.

Organizations must authorize signing-on. See more about the Bayou Culture Collaborative and the position statement here.

Bayou Culture Collaborative

Link

The Bayou Culture Collaborative offers strategies to help ensure Louisiana’s cultural traditions are passed on to future generations.
The collaborative offers a way to connect anyone interested in the intersection of traditional culture, the arts, and science in the face of Louisiana’s land loss and the impact of migrations upon our culture in the coming years.
An initiative of the Louisiana Folklore Society (www.louisianafolklore.org), the Division of the Arts Louisiana Folklife Program (www.louisianafolklife.org), and the Louisiana Folklife Commission in collaboration with non-profit organizations and university groups, we produce workshops in addition to offering funds to organizations and individuals.
The Bayou Culture Collaborative is funded with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, and the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.

Officers and Board

Officers & Board

President: Mona Lisa Saloy, Ph.D., Dillard University, Department of English (2014-2016)
Vice President: Jocelyn Donlon, Ph.D., Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts (2014-2016)
Secretary: Jennifer Ritter Guidry, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Center for Louisiana Studies (2015-2017)
Treasurer: John Sharp, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Center for Louisiana Studies (2015-2017)

Directors at Large

Frank de Caro: New Orleans (2013-2015)
Marcia Gaudet: University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Ernest Gaines Center (2013-2015)
Shelly Ingram: University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Department of English (2013-2015)
Solimar Otero: Louisiana State University, Department of English, Baton Rouge (2015-2017)
Shane Rasmussen: Northwestern State University of Louisiana, Louisiana Folklife Center (2015-2017)
Helen A. Regis: Louisiana State University, Department of Geography and Anthropology (2013-2015)
Susan Roach: Louisiana Tech University, Department of English (2015-2017)
Leslie Wade: Louisiana State University, Medieval & Renaissance (2015-2017)
Shana Walton: Nicholls State University, Department of English (2015-2017)

Miscellany Editor: Keagan Lejeune, McNeese State University, Department of English (2013-2018)

Sense of Place–and Loss Workshops

Climate Migration and Welcoming Newcomers

Maida Owens presented this workshop in two-parts that explores the arts role in dealing with the disruptions in our communities due to environmental changes and cultural strategies that communities can use to welcome newcomers and foster a sense of place for both long-term residents and newcomers.  

Part One introduced climate adaptation with a special focus on climate migration within the United States. This workshop challenges you to start thinking like a future ancestor and asks:  What will future generations wish we had done? It covered climate mitigation and adaptation, environmental economic and political changes predicted by 2030, migration and relocation issues including level of risk, economics, demographics and cultural issues.  Part One was recorded and is available on the LFS YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNLX4Rqm9fs 

Part Two explores cultural strategies to welcome newcomers using resources from immigration, arts, and folklore scholarship in addition to efforts by the Bayou Culture Collaborative (BCC) to bring culture into the community resilience conversation. BCC offers monthly online gatherings and working groups to facilitate communication about issues and develop strategies to address them that are free and open to all. The Arts, Culture and Climate Migration Resource List  includes all resources used in the two sessions.  

Maida Owens is a folklorist who has directed the Louisiana Division of the Arts Folklife Program since 1988. She is a founding member of the Bayou Culture Collaborative, an initiative of the Louisiana Folklore Society. Through monthly online gatherings and working groups, the BCC connects those interested in the intersection of traditional culture, the arts and science in the face of Louisiana’s land loss and environmental changes. Her focus is on the impact of migration upon our cultures in the face of coming disruption. 

Resources for the Bayou Culture Collaborative’s Sense of Place–and Loss workshops are available here. 

Arts, Culture and Migration Resource List

Migration and Receiving Communities – A Plan to Plan Worksheet

An Introduction to Climate Migration and Welcoming Newcomers, American Folklore Society, November 2, 2023.

What State Arts Agencies can do to sustain culture with increasing migration

June 4 Proclaimed as Louisiana Folklife Day!

DARDENNE PROCLAIMS JUNE 4 AS LOUISIANA FOLKLIFE DAY

Lt Governor Jay Dardenne has proclaimed Wednesday, June 4 as Louisiana Folklife Day to recognize the importance of Louisiana’s living traditions. Louisiana is celebrated worldwide for its unique traditions as reflected in its food, music, dance, celebration and crafts.

“Every one and every group has folklife,” explained Teresa Parker Farris, chair of the Louisiana Folklife Commission. Learned informally over time, folklife exists within all of Louisiana’s ethnic, regional, occupational, and family groups.

The Louisiana Folklife program’s newly expanded website, Folklife in Louisiana, presents the state’s regional and ethnic folklife in virtual books, including the new Delta Pieces: Northeast Louisiana Folklife; virtual exhibitions, including A Better Life for All: Traditional Arts of Louisiana’s Immigrant Communities, and hundreds of research essays, photographs, video, and audio components. The related Louisiana Voices Educator’s Guide, draws upon this state folklife scholarship to provide rich teaching resources and methods for all educational levels on Louisiana folk arts and culture.

The Lt. Governor will read the proclamation in front of the Creole State Exhibit located in Ackal Hall of the State Capitol in Baton Rouge at 2 pm on June 4, 2014 with the Louisiana Folklife Commission in attendance. The exhibit features traditional crafts from throughout the state and was made possible by Lt Governor Jay Dardenne and the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism.

Louisiana Folklife Day Proclamation

WHEREAS, Folklife includes living traditions learned informally over time within ethnic, regional, occupational, and family groups; and

WHEREAS, Folklife enriches education by recognizing and celebrating diversity, connecting the past to the present, transmitting cultural values, and fostering a sense of community and regional identity in the state; and

WHEREAS, Louisiana is celebrated worldwide for its unique food, music, dance, celebration and craft traditions influenced by state’s diverse ethnic group; and

WHEREAS, Folklife lies at the heart of Louisiana’s robust cultural heritage tourism, with cultural enterprises serving as a major employment engine for the state economy and contributing the regional growth; and

WHEREAS, The Louisiana Folklife program’s newly expanded website, Folklife in Louisiana, presents regional and ethnic folklife in virtual books, including Delta Pieces: Northeast Louisiana Folklife; virtual exhibitions, including A Better Life for All: Traditional Arts of Louisiana’s Immigrant Communities, and hundreds of research essays, photographs, video, and audio components; and

WHEREAS, The Louisiana Voices Educator’s Guide, provides rich teaching resources and methods for all educational levels; and

WHEREAS, The Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism and its Louisiana Folklife Program promote the state’s indigenous cultural traditions;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Jay Dardenne, Lt. Governor of the State of Louisiana, by the authority vested in me as Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana, do hereby proclaim June 4, 2014,

Louisiana Folklife Day
in the state of Louisiana.