BUREAU of CHANGE invited New Orleans community centers defined by heritage, from the smallest to the largest, to participate in an exchange.

New Orleans’ intense civic identity developed through Creole melding, conflict, values of cultural preservation and celebration—and the tourism industry. Its most visible iconography and aesthetics reflect the predominance of French, Spanish, African and Caribbean communities who built and re-shaped the city prior to its sale to the United States, as well as dynamics that developed from incorporation into the nation.

New Orleanians from all over the world engage with heritage groups for remembrance of origins and acknowledgement of common experiences of where they come from and of where they call home. BUREAU of CHANGE thought that bringing together often overlooked people would expose civic complexities and disrupt preconceptions of the sense of place that makes New Orleans so distinctive.

In collaboration with 25 heritage groups, BUREAU borrowed objects of significance to their community centers to share in an installation at Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans.  As a museum installation, HERE/HOME transported objects of material culture from their original context—in semi-private spaces throughout the city—to form a collective public display. A companion take-home booklet relays the story of each object as explained to us by the people it belongs to.

Outside the museum space, BUREAU engaged our network of heritage centers in a distributed exhibition that traversed the greater New Orleans area. In exchange for sharing their personalized symbols of heritage, we loaned works by BUREAU artists that express, in some way, a notion of New Orleans as home. The artworks temporarily stood in place of the objects we borrowed. While some heritage centers invited public viewings, these artworks were largely experienced by the people who regularly frequent each site.