Review: Called to Spirit, Women & Healing Arts in New Orleans

Left to right: Portraits of Dolores Watson, Dr. Nana Anoa Nantambu, & Mama Baderinwa

If you follow the sound of steady drumbeats and lilting accordion into the Ogden’s third floor gallery, prepare to be dazzled by the Neighborhood Story Project’s exhibit Called to Spirit: Women & Healing Arts in New Orleans. Presented as part of Prospect.5, and on display through January 23rd, curators Rachel Breunlin and Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes have retraced the legacies of our city’s most notable female spiritual leaders—past and present—through their sacred objects, audio recordings, visual art, and archival material. By presenting the unique material culture of New Orleans’ particular form of African-diasporic spiritualism, the exhibit broadens definitions of art into the metaphysical.

The exhibit begins by exploring the legacy of Marie Laveau through her influence on two present day spiritualists, Luisa Teish and Barbara Trevigne, accompanied by renderings of medicinal plants grown in Laveau’s yard, artifacts, archival material and audio recordings that assemble a lively portrait of 19th century spiritual life. Next it surveys leading women of the dozens of Spiritualist churches that emerged in the first half of the 20th Century in New Orleans. Photographs of women like Mother Catherine Seals and Bishop Bessie Johnson in their healing spaces, often during ceremony, are presented alongside artifacts excavated from the former site of the Temple of the Innocent Blood. Finally, the exhibit honors the legacies of contemporary spiritual leaders such as Marie Carmel Loiseau and Dolores Watson, whose spiritual practices continue to evolve these legacies. 

Left image: Mother Catherine Seals’ Sacred Cloth by Nana Sula Spirit and a contemporary photograph of Seals. Right image: Anointing Oil and Making A Circle both by Sydney Byrd.

The convergence within the exhibition of these spiritual legacies across the centuries illuminate both the variety and continuity of the city’s African diasporic traditions. The Holy Manger complex used by Mother Catherine Seals echoes the parterres, introduced earlier in the exhibit, that were used in ceremonies led by free women of color. The ordinances of Governor Miró that censured the Ladies of the Tignon society foreshadow the Jim Crow censorship experienced by Mother Catherine Seales. Though separated by time, it is clear that the spiritual paradigms of the various leaders on display share both a common lineage and a common resilience in the face of oppression.

This continuity was extended into the present moment during the exhibit’s opening night festivities. The Ogden itself practically shook from the force of the Kumbuka African Dance and Drum Collective, who struck the floor with their staffs in their petition to the ancestors to welcome the spirit of the recently deceased New Orleans spiritual leader Mama Baderinwa. The ceremony also included vodouisants from Haiti and Nana Sula Spirit, also featured in the exhibit, who began the ritual through her songs. The result was a living portrait of New Orleans spiritualism, past and present.  

The curatorial approach of the Neighborhood Story Project is a powerful example of what happens when art is deeply connected to a sense of place and tradition. The collection of art works, artifacts, and stories feel like roots of a tree growing out of the earth, showing the power of interconnection while exploring life’s greater mysteries. As the exhibit quotes Archbishop Lydia Gilford as saying, “When you feel the visitation of the spirit, you do whatever you feel like doing and it’s alright. You get a little closer to God and dig a little deeper into the mysteries.”

Called to Spirit: Women & Healing Arts in New Orleans will be on display at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art through January 25th, 2022 and is presented as part of the city-wide Prospect.5 exhibition. 

Altar to the Sacred Mother in honor of Ellen “Mama Baderinwa” Corrine Harper (1956-2021) and all the women who have nurtured us.

Nadia Deiudonné and Daniel Brevil salute the altar in honor of Mama Baderinwa Rolland.

Kumbuka African Dance & Drum Collective perform the opening night of Called to Spirit at The Ogden.