One of the most striking aspects of New Orleans’ topography is a highway that slices through the city’s oldest black neighbourhood, the Tremé. The local community reclaims their streets using mural painting and the collective masking traditions of the Mardi Gras Indians, in an alternative view of U.S. history, which references various stages of the struggle for civil rights, including the Maroon tradition of runaway slaves and Native Americans forming independent communities. Both practices operate within the post-colonial “profession of hybridization” as defined by Haitian poet René Depestre.
Moira Tierney
