Enigmatic Stream: Industrial Landscapes of the Lower Mississippi River

Click any image to view slideshow.
View down drainage canal along Hwy. 61 w/Norco refineries in background
Murphy Oil Refinery; Chalmette, Louisiana, 2015
Bonnet Carré Spillway and Norco, Louisiana, 2015
Exxon Mobil Refinery from Port Allen, Louisiana, 2015
Alumina Plant; near Donaldsonville, Louisiana, 2015
Veteran’s Memorial Bridge from Below; Gramercy, Louisiana, 2015
The Huey Restaurant; Bridge City, Louisiana, 2015
Detail of Huey P. Long Bridge; Bridge City, Louisiana, 2015
Undercarriage of Huey P. Long Bridge from below; west bank
Cows Grazing with Fertilizer Plant Under Construction in background, near Donaldsonville, Louisiana, 2015
River Scene from near Wallace, Louisiana, 2015
View of Uptown Container Ports from Gretna, Louisiana, 2015
Fishing in Flooded Bonnet Carré Spillway, 2015
Holy Rosary Cemetery adjacent to Taft Carbide chemical plant; Taft, LA
Little Gypsy power plant above Norco on river road
House in Meraux, LA, w/Valero refinery in background
Cinclare Sugar Mill; Brusly, Louisiana, 2015
Cinclare Sugar Mill; Brusly, LA
Domino Sugar Refinery; Chalmette, LA
Alumina Plant; Gramercy, Louisiana, 2015
Granaries in Destrehan, Louisiana, 2015
Norco, Louisiana, at Night, 2015

To view the exhibit information on The Historic New Orleans Collection’s web site click here.

You can view the press release for the exhibit and book launch here: EnigmaticStreamPressRelease.

To view the exhibit installation click here.

A virtual tour of the exhibit is featured on The Historic New Orleans Collection web site here.

Enigmatic Stream is a recent project, which was sponsored by The Historic New Orleans Collection. In the late 1990s I photographed the historic plantation sites of the lower Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge for Vestiges of Grandeur, published by Chronicle Books in 1999. Beginning in the early 2000s I revisited the same area of the Mississippi, this time focusing on the industrial landscape. The photographs in Vestiges were all color images. Enigmatic Stream is a black and white project. The different medium was deliberate, creating a stark contrast between the 19th and 20th century land use along the lower river corridor. The exhibition catalog was printed in Canada by Friesens in December 2017 and is now available for purchase. The exhibit opened at The Historic New Orleans Collection in New Orleans, on September 17, 2019, and runs until April 5, 2020.

—Richard Sexton

Enigmatic Stream exhibition reviews:

Eric Bookhardt review in Gambit Weekly. Read it here.

Sydney Odum review in Louisiana Weekly. Read it here.

Nicole Javorsky interviews Richard Sexton and reviews the project for THE HILL. Read it here.

Andru Okun interviews Richard Sexton in the January 2020 issue of Antigravity. Read it here.

2019 PhotoNOLA exhibit overview on All About Photo. Read it here.

Lauren Heffker interviews Richard Sexton and reviews the project in the February 2020 issue of Country Roads. Read it here.

Richard Sexton interviewed by Louisiana Public Broadcasting for Art Rocks, February 21, 2020, program. Watch the video here.

Christopher Leach produced a feature on The Historic New Orleans Collection’s virtual tour of the Enigmatic Stream exhibit, which you can see  here.

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