A black and white image shows a person wading in shallow water in the foreground. In the background, several large cargo ships are anchored under a cloudy sky, creating a stark contrast between the serene water and industrial ships.

Fishing in the flooded Bonnet Carré Spillway with moored tankers in background, near Norco (detail), 2015. © Richard Sexton HNOC, 2015.0364.51

Enigmatic Stream

Industrial Landscapes of the Lower Mississippi River

Photographs by Richard Sexton capture the essence of a complicated, often mysterious section of the country’s largest waterway.

September 17, 2019 to April 5, 2020

520 Royal Street
Tricentennial Wing
1st Floor

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Enigmatic Stream: Industrial Landscapes of the Lower Mississippi River

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As it churns toward its terminus in southeastern Louisiana, the Mississippi River becomes a wide, muddy superhighway of activity, matched in might only by the megastructures of heavy industry that line its banks. The section of the river from Baton Rouge to New Orleans doubles as one of the most potent economic corridors in the country. For two decades, photographer Richard Sexton has explored this complicated region. Intrigued by juxtapositions between innovation and decay, the commercial and the residential, the manmade and the natural, he has documented in Enigmatic Stream: Industrial Landscapes of the Lower Mississippi River a quintessentially American conundrum: our insatiable desire to exploit the lower Mississippi River’s potential while still leaving room for life along its banks.

Enigmatic Stream features more than one hundred black-and-white photographs by Sexton, accented by other materials drawn from and inspired by the Mississippi River, capturing the essence of a complicated and often mysterious section of the country’s largest waterway. The exhibition’s companion catalog features select photographs from Enigmatic Stream and essays by Sexton, curator John Lawrence, and author Paul Schneider.