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Brackish Artist Collective - Cohort 4 Open Call
The Water Collaborative of Greater New Orleans invites artists and cultural workers to apply for Cohort 4 of the Brackish Artist Collective, a multidisciplinary artist-centered learning and engagement program exploring the relationships between water, climate, infrastructure, culture, and community.
Brackish brings together a small cohort of artists working across disciplines to deepen their understanding of the water and climate challenges shaping New Orleans and Southeast Louisiana.
Through shared learning, conversation, experiential engagement, and creative exchange, participants are invited to consider how knowledge about our region's water systems and climate realities can inform their creative practices and the ways they communicate with their communities.
Why Brackish?
We believe artists play an important role in movements for environmental and social change.
Artists have the ability to translate complex ideas, histories, and lived experiences into forms that can move, challenge, connect, and inspire people. Brackish creates space for artists to engage with issues that are often discussed through technical, academic, or policy-based frameworks and explore how those issues might be understood and communicated through creative practice.
Participants will have opportunities to learn from one another, engage with people working on water and climate issues, explore the relationship between infrastructure and community, and reflect on how these experiences might influence their own work.
Creative Response
An important part of Brackish is the opportunity for artists to respond creatively to the knowledge and experiences encountered throughout the program.
Participants will be encouraged to consider how their artistic practices might interpret, translate, question, or respond to the themes explored through Brackish.
Creative responses may take many forms and may include writing, music, visual art, illustration, performance, film, photography, sound, storytelling, installation, or interdisciplinary practices.
Artists are not expected to arrive with a fully developed project. Brackish is intended to create the conditions for ideas to emerge through shared learning, dialogue, and experience.
Salons
Throughout the cohort, artists will participate in salons designed to foster conversation, reflection, and creative exchange.
The salons provide opportunities to process experiences, share perspectives across disciplines, discuss emerging ideas, and consider how the knowledge gained through Brackish might move into each artist's individual practice and community.
Public-Facing Creative Possibilities
The cohort may have an opportunity to develop a public-facing creative presentation or outdoor, site-based exhibition emerging from the collective's experience.
This potential presentation would invite artists to think about the relationship between creative work and place, particularly the landscapes, communities, and water infrastructure connected to the program.
The format, location, participating artists, and scope of any public presentation will be developed as the cohort progresses and will depend on site, logistical, and organizational considerations.
Who Should Apply?
We welcome artists and cultural workers working across disciplines, including but not limited to:
Musicians and composers
Writers and poets
Visual artists
Illustrators
Filmmakers and media artists
Performers
Storytellers
Cultural bearers
Interdisciplinary and experimental artists
We are particularly interested in artists who are curious, collaborative, community-minded, and interested in exploring the intersections of water, climate, environmental justice, infrastructure, culture, and place.
You do not need to be an environmental artist or have previous experience working on climate issues to apply.
Program Commitment
Cohort 4 will take place in 2027 over approximately six weeks.
The program includes a combination of artist gatherings, experiential learning, excursions, and opportunities for creative reflection and exchange.
Applicants should be prepared to make a meaningful commitment to the full cohort. Attendance at a minimum of four excursions is required.
Because Brackish has limited capacity and typically maintains a waiting list, please carefully consider your availability before applying.
Cohort 4 Dates
Every Tuesday and Thursday between February 23–March 30, 2027
An additional program activity is scheduled for April 1, 2027.
Detailed scheduling, program activities, locations, and additional participation information will be provided to applicants and/or selected cohort members through the Brackish Artist Information Packet.
Eligibility
Applicants must be 18 years of age or older.
We do not accept applications from anyone under 18, even with parental or guardian consent.
Artists do not need to live in New Orleans or identify exclusively as an environmental artist to apply. We encourage artists with diverse creative practices, experiences, and perspectives to apply.
Before You Apply
We encourage applicants to consider:
What draws you to questions of water, climate, infrastructure, or environmental justice?
How does your creative practice engage with your community or sense of place?
What are you curious to learn?
How might new knowledge influence your creative practice?
What possibilities do you see in creating work in response to place and lived experience?
You do not need to have a specific project idea. We are interested in your curiosity, perspective, practice, and willingness to engage.
About the Water Collaborative
Since 2019, the Water Collaborative of Greater New Orleans has explored innovative ways to engage communities in conversations about climate change and environmental justice in Louisiana.
Our mission is to build community-driven policy solutions that actualize water as a human right in a climate-unstable world.
Through Brackish, the Water Collaborative creates opportunities for artists and creators to engage with regional water and climate challenges in ways that move beyond traditional academic modes of communication.
The Collective seeks to build relationships, share knowledge, support creative practice, and strengthen the ability of artists and their communities to imagine and advocate for a more resilient future.
Learn More & Apply
If you are interested in exploring the intersections of art, water, climate, infrastructure, and community, we invite you to apply for Brackish Cohort 4.
Brackish Artist Collective -
Cohort 4 Open Call
The Water Collaborative of Greater New Orleans invites artists and cultural workers to apply for Cohort 4 of the Brackish Artist Collective, a multidisciplinary artist-centered learning and engagement program exploring the relationships between water, climate, infrastructure, culture, and community.
Brackish brings together a small cohort of artists working across disciplines to deepen their understanding of the water and climate challenges shaping New Orleans and Southeast Louisiana.
Through shared learning, conversation, experiential engagement, and creative exchange, participants are invited to consider how knowledge about our region's water systems and climate realities can inform their creative practices and the ways they communicate with their communities.
Why Brackish?
We believe artists play an important role in movements for environmental and social change.
Artists have the ability to translate complex ideas, histories, and lived experiences into forms that can move, challenge, connect, and inspire people. Brackish creates space for artists to engage with issues that are often discussed through technical, academic, or policy-based frameworks and explore how those issues might be understood and communicated through creative practice.
Participants will have opportunities to learn from one another, engage with people working on water and climate issues, explore the relationship between infrastructure and community, and reflect on how these experiences might influence their own work.
Creative Response
An important part of Brackish is the opportunity for artists to respond creatively to the knowledge and experiences encountered throughout the program.
Participants will be encouraged to consider how their artistic practices might interpret, translate, question, or respond to the themes explored through Brackish.
Creative responses may take many forms and may include writing, music, visual art, illustration, performance, film, photography, sound, storytelling, installation, or interdisciplinary practices.
Artists are not expected to arrive with a fully developed project. Brackish is intended to create the conditions for ideas to emerge through shared learning, dialogue, and experience.
Salons
Throughout the cohort, artists will participate in salons designed to foster conversation, reflection, and creative exchange.
The salons provide opportunities to process experiences, share perspectives across disciplines, discuss emerging ideas, and consider how the knowledge gained through Brackish might move into each artist's individual practice and community.
Public-Facing Creative Possibilities
The cohort may have an opportunity to develop a public-facing creative presentation or outdoor, site-based exhibition emerging from the collective's experience.
This potential presentation would invite artists to think about the relationship between creative work and place, particularly the landscapes, communities, and water infrastructure connected to the program.
The format, location, participating artists, and scope of any public presentation will be developed as the cohort progresses and will depend on site, logistical, and organizational considerations.
Who Should Apply?
We welcome artists and cultural workers working across disciplines, including but not limited to:
Musicians and composers
Writers and poets
Visual artists
Illustrators
Filmmakers and media artists
Performers
Storytellers
Cultural bearers
Interdisciplinary and experimental artists
We are particularly interested in artists who are curious, collaborative, community-minded, and interested in exploring the intersections of water, climate, environmental justice, infrastructure, culture, and place.
You do not need to be an environmental artist or have previous experience working on climate issues to apply.
Program Commitment
Cohort 4 will take place in 2027 over approximately six weeks.
The program includes a combination of artist gatherings, experiential learning, excursions, and opportunities for creative reflection and exchange.
Applicants should be prepared to make a meaningful commitment to the full cohort. Attendance at a minimum of four excursions is required.
Because Brackish has limited capacity and typically maintains a waiting list, please carefully consider your availability before applying.
Cohort 4 Dates
Every Tuesday and Thursday between February 23–March 30, 2027
An additional program activity is scheduled for April 1, 2027.
Detailed scheduling, program activities, locations, and additional participation information will be provided to applicants and/or selected cohort members through the Brackish Artist Information Packet.
Eligibility
Applicants must be 18 years of age or older.
We do not accept applications from anyone under 18, even with parental or guardian consent.
Artists do not need to live in New Orleans or identify exclusively as an environmental artist to apply. We encourage artists with diverse creative practices, experiences, and perspectives to apply.
Before You Apply
We encourage applicants to consider:
What draws you to questions of water, climate, infrastructure, or environmental justice?
How does your creative practice engage with your community or sense of place?
What are you curious to learn?
How might new knowledge influence your creative practice?
What possibilities do you see in creating work in response to place and lived experience?
You do not need to have a specific project idea. We are interested in your curiosity, perspective, practice, and willingness to engage.
About the Water Collaborative
Since 2019, the Water Collaborative of Greater New Orleans has explored innovative ways to engage communities in conversations about climate change and environmental justice in Louisiana.
Our mission is to build community-driven policy solutions that actualize water as a human right in a climate-unstable world.
Through Brackish, the Water Collaborative creates opportunities for artists and creators to engage with regional water and climate challenges in ways that move beyond traditional academic modes of communication.
The Collective seeks to build relationships, share knowledge, support creative practice, and strengthen the ability of artists and their communities to imagine and advocate for a more resilient future.
Learn More & Apply
If you are interested in exploring the intersections of art, water, climate, infrastructure, and community, we invite you to apply for Brackish Cohort 4.
