NOTICE: Due to Tropical Storm/Hurricane Francine, which is expected to make landfall on the Louisiana coast at 7pm on Wednesday, September 11th, we are postponing the online program for the launch of the Shifting Landscapes virtual tour. We are working to determine a reschedule date with our panelists and will send out updates when we know more. Our apologies for the inconvenience, and for those expecting impacts from the storm, stay safe!
We are pleased to celebrate the launch of Shifting Landscapes: Slavery and the Built Environment, a 360-degree panoramic virtual tour of Gallier House created by Hermann-Grima + Gallier Historic Houses (HGGHH). This virtual panel discussion will bring together museum staff and the national team of historians who collaborated on the content development of the tour. We will feature a virtual walkthrough of the tour followed by a Q&A session with the public. The virtual tour and the launch panel are free to the public, and all are welcome to attend.
This virtual panel discussion is made possible with support from the City of New Orleans Mayor’s Office of Cultural Economy.
About HGGHH and Shifting Landscapes:
Managed by The Woman’s Exchange, HGGHH preserves two 19th-century French Quarter homes and, through their architecture, collections, and history, inspires conversation about our collective past and its relevance to our present and future. The Shifting Landscapes virtual tour of Gallier House focuses deeply on how this site was experienced by the enslaved people—Laurette, Rose, Julienne, and François—who lived and labored there between the house's completion in 1860 and the end of the Civil War in 1865. In addition to exploring the buildings, outdoor spaces, and collections at Gallier House, visitors will be given a glimpse into everyday life on the property and how the enslaved people at the house navigated their environment on the eve of slavery’s abolition in the southern United States. The tour will explore the idea of “Shifting Landscapes”: not only the ways in which the physical spaces of the house meant different things to different people at different times, but also the many ways in which the social landscape shifted for enslaved people during this brief but tumultuous period in history. The tour also challenges us, in the present day, to shift our ways of thinking about the history of the landscapes–both physical and metaphorical–that we experience every day.
The virtual panel will include (alphabetical by last name):
Dr. Fallon Samuels Aidoo, Assistant Professor of Real Estate & Historic Preservation, School of Architecture, Tulane University.
Dr. Bryan Carter, Professor of Africana Studies, Director, Center for Digital Humanities, University of Arizona
Peter Dandridge, Curatorial Associate, Hermann-Grima + Gallier Historic Houses.
Dr. Clifton Ellis, Elizabeth Sasser Professor of Architectural History, Huckabee College of Architecture at Texas Tech University
Dr. Walter D. Greason, DeWitt Wallace Professor of History, Department of History, Macalester College.
Dr. Erin M. Greenwald, Historian and Founder, The Working Historian, LLC.
Dr. Leslie M. Harris, Professor of History and Black Studies, Department of History, Northwestern University.
Dr. Amy Katherine Medvick, Director of Educational Programming, Hermann-Grima + Gallier Historic Houses.
Dr. Louis P. Nelson, Professor of Architectural History, University of Virginia
Dr. Arijit Sen, Associate Professor, Architecture and Urban Studies, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.
Brook Tesler, MPS, Founding Principal & Architectural Historian, Tesler Preservation Consulting, LLC; Adjunct Lecturer, Tulane School of Architecture.
Mr. Leon A. Waters, Historian, Publisher, Social Activist, and Manager of Hidden History LLC.