Join us to meet and learn more about current Rising: Climate in Crisis Residents Claire Alexandre and Andrina Turenne. Both artists will give a short presentation followed by a light dinner and refreshments outdoors. Registration and proof of vaccination required for those 5 and up.

While in residence, Claire Alexandre will create a series of mixed-media painted portraits of folks of color at the community forefront of New Orleans’ climate change adaptation actions. The six portraits will be symbolic of modern academic research paper paragraphs (introduction, hypothesis, methods, results, discussion and conclusion) as a way to criticize the rigid exclusivity of institutional research methodology and empower people whose existence within these frameworks has been reduced to data.

Andrina Turenne will use her residency to explore Indigenous and local perspectives on water, language and land through music, past and present, as it relates to climate and landscape. In doing research, exploring geographic and cultural throughlines, and speaking with people on the land, her goal is to produce recordings and performances of music and stories related to these themes, both collaboratively and independently.

Claire Alexandre is an intersectional artist and storyteller who weaves autobiographical reflections with ancestral knowledge while exploring larger themes of environmental, gender and racial justice. She seeks to deepen our collective understanding of Black community prosperity and its close ties with ecologies of all scales. Through mixed-media painting, street art and botanical knowledge, she uses her skills to create modern day mythologies and heroes honoring the resilience, power and complexities of Black Diasporic identity, particularly that of womxn.

Andrina Turenne is a bilingual singer, songwriter, and musician from Winnipeg, Manitoba. She grew up along the banks of the Red River in the historic Francophone-Métis settlement of Saint-Boniface, and is a proud member of the Métis Nation. She has worked in music for over two decades, from collaborating in groups such as JUNO Award-winning Chic Gamine to a new solo career she has been carving out since 2018. She has contributed vocals to over 30 professionally-released albums and has recorded seven full-length albums. She has played festivals of all sizes and has toured extensively throughout North America, South America, Europe, Australia and Africa. She draws inspiration from her own life experiences and her travels, as well as the rich history and raw beauty of the land she grew from.