that familiar weight on shoulders

              sweat, heat,

        the old pain in feet

                        knees

    beads and feathers

   needle and thread

The Mardi Gras Indians are a secret society in New Orleans that is over one hundred years old. Always on the fringes, never institutionalized, the Indians kept their customs and traditions alive through craft and song. 

The project is bore from an examination of the material culture of this society and ,through drawings and interviews, distilled the beautiful suits the indians wear into an architectural language.

The project proposes an institution establish the Indians as the stewards of their culture, placing them in charge of their future.

The project began with an examination of the material culture of the Indians, their suits. The documentation and reinterpretation of the suits serves dual purposes: it provided a creative catalyst for the studio as well as began to establish an archive of these works of folk art. Many suits have been lost in the flooding that has devastated the city of New Orleans, and the careful recording of the work of these artisans make protects this work for future Indians. 

An understanding of the role the discrete part of the suits played in service of the whole began to morph into a parti for the project. Here the back of the suit supports a man's form, such that the suit, receiving a human, projects the form of a human in the opposite direction. 

Collectively, the drawings were collaged together to present a kind of exquisite corpse of the suits. The collaborators on this project were the other students in my studio: Joseph D'Arco, Bryan Bradshaw, Lauren Taylor, Xinye Lin, Wells Megalli, Austin Riotte, and Dia Biagioni.