Thursday night! BUREAU Artist in Residence Danielle Abrams curates a night of performance at New Orleans’ threepalms after a tip that it’s the hottest place to be plus there’s a tiki bar! In her own words: “I’ll be performing my new piece ‘Shades of Gras.’ Think Elia Kazan’s Pinky meets Brad Pitt for a plaçage arrangement on a 300 year-old float, but only after getting some red beans and rice and a blessing from Tremé‘s eponymous Uncle Lionel Batiste! I’m so proud to be on deck with a crew of immensely talented Bostonites—artists Angela M. Counts, Ryan Leitner and Robert Fieseler, author of the newly released book Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation. It’s free, it’s outside, it’s the most adorable patio you could imagine, great food, good drink, people who smile at you, excellent vibes!”

Left: Cloud operator shredding a customer’s money, BUREAU of CHANGE’s black cloud Micro Ichi interface at Yami NYC 2, Nov. 2016. Right: Rhizome and exonemo’s micro-edition of the Internet Yami Ichi at NADA, March 2018. Rhizome transforms BUREAU’s Micro Ichi New Orleans concept, a performative intervention emphasizing collective ownership and anti-commercialism, into a boutique of internet-inspired wares at NADA art fair in New York City.   In 2015, BUREAU popped up in the neutral ground of the New Orleans’ St. Claude gallery district to hawk our internet-ish things. Organized and produced with Caroline Sinders, we staged a “micro” version of the Internet Yami-Ichi, a global underground art event created by IDPW. The following year, BUREAU travelled to the Knockdown Center for the Yami in NYC 2, the biggest meetup of Internet Yami-Ichi venders from New York and around the world, and vended from from our handcrafted black cloud interface embellished in glitter, silver and gold.   Rhizome and exonemo, an artist duo behind IDPW gatherings, commercialized the concept originated in New Orleans for the 2018 New Art Dealers Association art fair in New York City. “While the Internet Yami-Ichi is usually vast in size,” writes Rhizome’s Laura Studabaker, “Rhizome’s edition–like...

BUREAU’s Scott Sullivan presented in the “live arts magazine,” Antenna::Signals, Issue 007, at Paper Machine in New Orleans on January 24, 2018. In celebration of the opening of Antenna’s Paper Machine print center, Signals presentations and performances examine the theme Papers. Papers explored the myriad uses of paper – a medium at once literal and symbolic, malleable and dogmatic, portable and burdensome – to translate and regulate life. The event will explore the connotations of the theme from a number of specific angles, including immigration papers, the Green book (guide to safe road tripping for African Americans in Jim Crow America), Storyville blue books (catalogues for New Orleans’ famed red light district), and rolling and hemp papers.   BUREAU’s Scott Sullivan, an international law and foreign affairs professor at LSU and occasional artist under the pseudonym Ulay Deux, presented on several document-performance works, including the CIA’s experiment in training cats and Osama bin Laden’s English language bookshelf confiscated by the U.S. government at the time of his killing.   Presenters and performances included: Katrina Andry Pamela D. Arceneaux Vanessa Centeno Ulay Deux (Scott Sullivan) Rick Kasini Kadour John Lawrence Lydia Y. Nichols Bob Snead Dave Sobel Rodrigo Toscano   ABOUT...

BUREAU of CHANGE, with Prospect New Orleans, presents two installations in P.S.4 at Urban Sidewalk Installation Space (US|IS), 441 Gravier Street at Magazine Street. The exhibitions opened November 18, 2017 and continued for the duration of Prospect and beyond. Wombs Are the World closed on May 8, 2018 and BUREAU of CHANGE: Social Services is ongoing. BUREAU of CHANGE: Social Services (P.S. Prospect) Conceived in conversation with Prospect New Orleans, BUREAU of CHANGE will present a new installation in our evolving series Social Services.   Set against a backdrop of simmering international criticism of art festivals and biennials, layers of text will pose questions about the role of artists and their institutions—small to large, shoestring to rich, obscure to “famous”—as mediators or arbiters of history, culture and conflict.   Seen from the street, the newest version of Social Services aims to turn topsy turvy who we consider artists, art stars and prospects.   By design and resulting from its interactive, participatory qualities, BUREAU of CHANGE: Social Services is an ongoing project. It has exhibited at US/IS continuously since October 2014. Nikomia Henry debuts her first solo exhibition at Prospect New Orleans BUREAU of CHANGE delivers a fresh face to P.S.4 with Wombs...

BUREAU of CHANGE is proud to present Reverberations, a series of lectures, workshops and performances on local acts and global impacts. Organized by BUREAU founder Margot Herster, in collaboration with the LSU Law Center and Ogden Honors College, the series brings together socially engaged practitioners in law, journalism and art to present recent work. Reverberations is a a three-part series, taking place at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge on March 29, April 3 and April 7, 2017. Past Due: Costs and Consequences of Charging for Justice Mathilde Laisne (Vera Institute) & Jennifer Hull (Orleans Public Defenders) Wednesday, March 29, 2017; 3:30 PM LSU Law Center, Room 106 Every year, government agencies in New Orleans collect millions of dollars in the form of bail, fines and fees from people involved in the criminal justice system and, by extension, from their families. Millions more are transferred from the pockets and bank accounts of residents to for-profit bail bond agents. Some view these costs as a necessary way to offset the expense of operating the criminal justice system. But because many “users” of the system have very low incomes or none at all, there is growing concern that charging for justice amounts to a criminalization of...

Somebody to lean on by Hannah North Sometimes, memories have a way of coming out through your sub-conscious. As I started writing this blog on distressing content we all seem to experience through social media, I began with the line “every human on this planet has experienced pain and sorrow.” A colleague pointed out to me that these words echo the opening lyrics to a song that was important to me in a time that seemed simple yet was so impactful to my childhood. I grew up in a family of addicts, which could seem like a tragedy to those who know my story. However, it opened me up to a supportive community that I would have never had otherwise. I spent the majority of my childhood in Alateen, a program for children affected by addiction. It felt like everyone in the program was always there when I needed advice, a friend or just someone to talk to. At the end of my favorite convention we would sing a farewell song. We grabbed hands, the music started, and we sang together, In those moments, I knew it was true. I would always have somebody to lean on. Through addiction, war,...