Carnival From the Ground Up

Photography by Ryan Hodgson-Rigsbee

Text by Martha Radice

An outdoor photography exhibit at the New Orleans Jazz Museum, 400 Esplanade Avenue, New Orleans LA 70116

Carnival From the Ground Up is a tribute to the people who make New Orleans’ carnival by hand, and who take carnival to the streets on foot. These are the Baby Dolls and the Black Masking Indians, and the new wave of walking and dancing krewes that march independently or strut between the big floats of the uptown parades. These are the gorgeous and glorious maskers who rule the streets on Mardi Gras day. The exhibit celebrates the creativity, community, hard work, joy, and power of making carnival from the ground up.

The histories and motivations of the carnival groups featured in this exhibit are diverse. The deep-rooted traditions of Black Masking Indians express the strength of Black New Orleanian identity, creativity, and resistance to oppression. Masking draws on African masquerading traditions and honors a history of Native Americans’ solidarity with African Americans, especially the refuge they provided to those seeking freedom and their mutual determination to hold on to their culture in the face of settler colonialism and plantation slavery. A place in a tribe must be earned and recognizes leadership, skill, and status in the community. Similarly, the Baby Dolls’ beauty and bravado speak to Black women’s power, spirit, and independence, as well as their sense of fun and pleasure.

Other walking parades uphold different carnival traditions. Krewe du Vieux, for instance, uses absurd and often lewd humor to poke fun at authority, convention, and political figures. Its members join one of its subkrewes by invitation when spaces open up. Some krewes focus on channeling beauty, like Krewe des Fleurs or the Krewe of Goddesses, or play with themes from popular culture, like the Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus or the Rolling Elvi.

A krewe is a social club that organizes carnival activities. It can be small or big, informal or formal, independent or nested as a subkrewe within a bigger krewe. Each has its own ethos and style. The word ‘krewe’ was coined when a group of wealthy white Anglo-American men founded a secret society to present the first formal carnival parade in 1857. The format caught on and more elite white men started krewes. Their float parades and the laws regulating them reinforced racial, class, and gender hierarchies. Only later in the twentieth century did the city’s official parade calendar diversify to include women’s, Black, and mixed krewes.

Because they walk instead of riding floats, the krewes in this exhibit celebrate in ways that hark back to an earlier era of carnival. In the 1800s to 1830s, processions would form around people going to the balls and masquerades of carnival season. Masking in the streets was popular, despite the city’s attempts to ban it. Some twentieth-century walking krewes were founded explicitly to revive street masking in the French Quarter. Walking krewes have multiplied in the post-Katrina years, as people find ever-creative ways to participate in carnival and show they belong to New Orleans.

Old or new, the yearly rituals of carnival hold deep meaning. The people portrayed in this exhibit speak of honoring ancestors, grieving loved ones, delighting strangers, and making magic with friends. As they make carnival from the ground up, they are telling stories, sharing blessings, and grasping joy.

Making carnival from the ground up takes work. The groups featured in this exhibit create their suits, costumes, throws, small floats, and props by hand. Some take months to craft beautiful pieces that will only be seen on one or two special days. In a city with vast inequality of income and wealth, people have vastly different access to resources to make their creations. Sewing a Black Masking Indian suit is highly skilled artistic work that requires great sacrifices of time and money to complete. Constructing a space-age contraption for a Chewbacchus subkrewe that plays music and a light show can be a feat of engineering. Other folks throw together a fabulous costume just days before they parade, mixing and matching whatever materials they have on hand and hoping their hot glue stick supply doesn’t run out.

The labor of making the material culture of carnival is intense yet enjoyable, and often companionably shared. Members of the tribe, krewe, group, or society work side by side, sewing and beading, gluing and painting, assembling their suits, floats, or throws. Friends and family might lend a hand. The art and craft of carnival are passed from longtime members to new ones, from one generation to the next.

Carnival from the ground up is rooted in community. Folks join krewes with friends and make friends through them, declaring, “I found my people!” When people parade, they do it for others as much as for themselves. Black Masking Indian tribes meet other tribes. Krewe members greet friends in the crowds and hand throws – little gifts – to strangers. Everyone poses for pictures. And unlike other public holidays, Mardi Gras is a day to be out in the community, not just with family and loved ones.

People who make carnival from the ground up weave community throughout the year. Many groups, tribes, and krewes volunteer for non-profit organizations, appearing at fund-raisers, raising funds, cooking meals or putting together school supplies to give away. Their members support each other when times are hard, and have a lot of fun together when times are good. That is not to say there’s no drama! Sometimes personalities clash or leaders disagree. Parade logistics are complicated, and organizers get burned out. Groups split apart and new ones form. There is Mardi Gras magic, and there are Mardi Gras meltdowns. Carnival is only human.

Carnival unfolds through relationships, and so did this photography exhibit. It would be impossible to cover it all, even within the theme of carnival from the ground up. Our selection follows our connections, which are just a few of the threads in the great web of carnival.

Acknowledgments: This exhibit was jointly curated by photographer Ryan Hodgson-Rigsbee (rhrphoto.com) and anthropologist Martha Radice (Dalhousie University), with support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation, and our host, the New Orleans Jazz Museum.

We feel deep gratitude and appreciation toward everyone who has participated in this project. Special thanks go to Gianna Chachere, Denise Frazier, David Kunian, Greg Lambousy, Joey Mercer, Helen Regis, and Jane Thomas, for their advice and assistance.