TAC: The Space Between Worlds

The Teen Art Council is a group of creative teens from across New Orleans who serve as youth ambassadors of the New Orleans Museum of Art. The TAC meets weekly throughout the school year to engage with artworks, museum staff, and artists; develop events and resources for teen audiences; and grow as creative thinkers and leaders in their communities.

During the Fall 2021 semester, TAC members dove deep into the retrospective exhibition of pioneering multimedia artist Dawn DeDeaux, The Space Between Words. From a field trip to the artist’s residence and compound to extended looking and conversation in the galleries, the teens were immersed in the artist’s visions of life on a devastated Earth and inspiring calls to viewers to chart another course forward.

About the Project

Space is defined as “a period in time,” “an extent set apart or available,” and “the distance from other people or things that a person needs in order to remain comfortable.”

This exhibition, Dawn DeDeaux: The Space Between Worlds is an all-encompassing experience of what life was, is, and will be according to the projected path of life on Earth. Because of pollution, human error, greed, impatience, and so many other factors, life on Earth as we know it will cease to exist if we don’t make changes for the better. From the Where’s Mary 4D experience to Almost Touching You is a call to action for humans to wake up and realize that we can’t continue doing the same things we are used to if we want things to get better.

“The space” refers to not only the many years that it took for the exhibit to fully come together, but also to the physical and emotional distance between humans and other animals. As a society, we have become desensitized and numb to all of the pain and corruption around us, but change can’t be made from the bench or standing on the sidelines.

This exhibit creates feelings that could be described as uncomfortable, intense, and sad, but it also leaves you with a sense of hope for the world that, “Maybe now, I can be the change I want to see in the world”. Below you will see different interpretations of this exhibit from other members of the Teen Art Council. It’s ultimately up to the individual to decide what they want to get out of this multimedia display that asks us: “well, now what?”

— 3rd year TAC member Etienne Juluke

Etienne Juluke in response to the Space Clowns series

This piece is my interpretation and spin on the Space Clown featured in the Great Hall. My preferred medium has always been watercolor, and I took advantage of the opportunity to create something that would flow seamlessly between my portfolio and the TAC storyboard.

The poem I wrote is to summarize the feelings I experienced while observing a specific artwork from the exhibit, but also put the theme of it into a more relatable sense. The piece called Gulf to Galaxy: Flood then Fire is what I wrote about and the theme that I wanted to come across the most is that there is beauty in tragedy and pain.

Kalyn Jackson, a response to Gulf to Galaxy: Flood then Fire

Alesha Syed, zine cover artwork

Where’s Mary

Click here to listen to a collaborative playlist inspired by DeDeaux’s work by the same name.

About the playlist: The most striking aspect of Where’s Mary? is DeDeaux’s ability to juxtapose stunning visuals of destruction with the haunting ambient sounds of our universe. Through this playlist, we strived to capture the sense of first stepping foot into the retrospective. Each TAC member contributed a song that reminded them of the comfortable loneliness that follows in Mary’s trail. We hope you enjoy it, and that our selections remind you of where you first found Mary.

Playlist by Alice Hanks and Josie Messina

A look inside Hudson Meyn’s song choice: Lunar Rhapsody by Les Baxter

This song romanticizes space and is dreamy. You want to romanticize what life is like in space and in the future, similar to a teenager romanticizing their future. Teens were recently children who are very imaginative and have high hopes for their futures. Teenagers are also close to being an adult, and over the course of time they’ve grown up and hopefully figured out what they want to do in life.

Artwork by Hazel Tao

Alisia Houghtailing, Where I Go When We Mess Up

I was thinking about nature and I painted this same tree on my wall in my room… I was thinking the flowers represent us going outside our earthly boundaries, causing distress to the planet which will be the death of Earth. It’s painted on a bag to represent the idea that we hold the fate of Earth in our hands. The bag is used for shopping instead of using plastic. I was inspired by The Space Between Worlds because we are driving ourselves into another world, which no one wants because it’s dark and depressing.

Sarah Hook, a response to The Face of God

Makaya Mundy, The Space Between Worlds

From a draft on a piece of paper to a finished artwork on my iPad, this digital illustration includes 2 portals. These portals are meant for children and adults. The person in front, who is a teen, struggles to pick which to enter.

Click here to print your own copy of the TAC’s zine!

Keep up with the Teen Art Council on Instagram @noma_teens

Education and outreach initiatives at NOMA are supported in part by the Wagner Foundation; The Gayle and Tom Benson Foundation; the Lois and Lloyd Hawkins Jr. Foundation; The Helis Foundation; The City of New Orleans; IBERIABANK|First Horizon; Janice Parmelee and Bill Hammack; Sara and David Kelso; Patrick F. Taylor Foundation; The RosaMary Foundation; The Azby Fund; the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism, in cooperation with the Louisiana State Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts, a Federal agency; The Collins C. Diboll Private Foundation; Burkenroad Foundation; Marian Dreux Van Horn Education Endowment; Ruby K. Worner Trust through the PNC Charitable Trusts Grant Review Committee; The Harry T. Howard III Foundation; Harvey and Marie Orth; New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and Foundation, Inc.; The Bruce J. Heim Foundation; and Mrs. Bennett A. Molter, Jr. This project is supported in part by the Louisiana Culture Care Fund. Funding for Louisiana Culture Care Fund grants has been administered by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities (LEH) and provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as part of the American Rescue Plan (ARP) and the NEH Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan (SHARP) initiative.

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