AFAR Magazine Covers Tchoupitoulas Art Corridor

New Orleans Is Ready to Tell a Different Story

It is late morning, the sun already bright and hot, and I’ve just arrived at Tchoupitoulas Street, a mostly nondescript corridor of New Orleans. As I stand on the sidewalk, cars whiz past, and I look in front of me at an expansive mural. It is colorful and vibrant, rich and impressive in its scale. But it is still evolving, much like the city itself.

New Orleans-born artist and educator Jamar Pierre first conceived of the Tchoupitoulas Flood Wall Mural in 2018, after the NOLA Foundation selected him to create a painting for the city’s tricentennial. That painting, Resilience, inspired Pierre to embark on something more ambitious, and after years of red tape, he was able to begin working.

When completed, the mural will depict more than 300 years of New Orleans history, beginning with the Houma Indigenous peoples and including the Louisiana Purchase and the 1815 Battle of New Orleans. The Ursuline nuns, herbalist and voodoo practitioner Marie Laveau, and gospel singer Mahalia Jackson are already featured in the completed portion of the mural. Currently, it is less than 25 percent done, covering 1,200 of its anticipated 4,994 linear feet. But when it’s finished, Pierre hopes it will become one of the city’s top sites.