To celebrate the New Orleans tricentennial, Fallen Fruit artists created an exhibit that used the vast archives and special collections at Tulane as material to create a complex visual narrative of New Orleans and its history of transnational trade and cultural rituals.

“We spent over a year researching the vast historic archives and interviewing each archivist. The process was rigorous, intuitive, and full of unexpected treasures,” Young said. In EMPIRE, Fallen Fruit intentionally includes historical records, ephemeral artifacts, artworks and objects culled from various archives across Tulane’s campus and recontextualizes them in the museum. The archives include those from the Amistad Research Center, Hogan Jazz Archive, The Latin American Library, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane Law Library, Tulane University Archives, Middle American Research Institute, Newcomb Art Museum, Newcomb College Institute, Royal D. Suttkus Fish Collection / Tulane University Biodiversity Research Institute and Southeastern Architectural Archive. EMPIRE invites viewers to creatively interpret the displayed objects, their connections and their juxtapositions to generate new meanings. Click here to read the full article.