Kids and their grown-ups are invited for a day of free family fun at the New Orleans Museum of Art!

Explore the exhibition Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined with a gallery talk, storytime, and art-making activities. Join an Afrobeats dance and drumming lesson by Andrea Peoples, and then put your new moves to work at a dance party featuring a musical performance by DJ Ojay and Kreative Arts Collective drummers.

For this family day, we’re taking inspiration from Wangechi Mutu’s bold vision of the future, which brings together nearly one hundred sculptures, paintings, collages, drawings, and films. Mutu’s work explores the legacies of colonialism, globalization, and African diasporic cultural traditions. 

Admission and programming are free for families.

Advanced registration is encouraged. 

Register Now

This program is supported by The Howard Foundation.

FAMILY DAY HIGHLIGHTS

Storytime and Crafting with Author Shannon Kelley-Atwater

10:30 am and 11:00 am | Alligators Don’t Like Flowers Storytime and Crafting in the Great Hall 

11:30 am | Book Signing in the NOMA Museum Shop 

Join us for a story inspired by real alligators at the Audubon Zoo and the Aquarium of the Americas. Read by the author Shannon Kelley-Atwater, Alligators Don’t Like Flowers introduces us to a special alligator named Angelo. The story is followed by a floral crown crafting activity. Before heading home, visit Crocodylus by Wangechi Mutu in NOMA’s Besthoff Sculpture Garden. 

Gallery Talk: Wangechi Mutu’s Crocodylus and In Two Canoe

12:00–12:30 pm
Besthoff Sculpture Garden 

Explore the connections between Wangechi Mutu’s Afrofuturist artwork and environmental advocacy. Meet in NOMA’s Great Hall at 12 pm. This Gallery talk will be 20–30 minutes. 

Afrobeats Dance Party – Lesson, Drums, DJ, and Dancing 

12:30 pm–2:00 pm
Great Hall  

Get pumped up during Andrea Peoples’s Afrobeats-inspired dance and drumming lesson. Then, use your new moves in an Afrobeats dance party featuring DJ Ojay and Kreative Arts Collective drummers. 

Art-Making Activity: Assemblage Art Station and Temporary Tattoo Collages

10 am–2 pm
McDermott International, Inc. Elevator Lobby  

Join us at the art-making table for crafts inspired by Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined. Put your imagination to work and get hands-on by collaging your own unique artwork with found objects, or make your own temporary tattoo arrangement from a selection of flowers, butterflies, and geometric elements, while supplies last. Adults must be present for temporary tattoo applications.

Play Area and Book Nook on the Portico

10 am–2 pm
Portico

Families are taking over NOMA’s front entrance for family day! Read books and play in the sunshine in front of the museum. The play area includes bubbles, hula hoops, and jump ropes.

Food from Tanjariné Kitchen Food Truck and Café NOMA

10 am–2 pm
NOMA’s Circle Drive 

Tanjariné Kitchen, home of the Mandela Burger, is a vegan restaurant offering mouth-watering cuisines inspired by the culinary traditions of Africa; from the Horn of Africa to the Cape of the continent. Tanjariné Kitchen’s signature hand-crafted vegan burger is a soy-free, gluten-free, and nut-free delicious vegan burger made with a proprietary blend of legumes and spices. This flavor-packed burger will leave your mouth watering and in awe of its texture. Tanjariné Kitchen makes vegan delicious! 

Café NOMA by Ralph Brennan features a delicious array of artisanal flatbreads, sandwiches, salads, and veggie bowls alongside an artful assortment of freshly baked breads and sweets inside a show-stopping pastry case.

ABOUT OUR PARTNERS

Shannon Kelley-Atwater

Shannon Kelly-Atwater was born and raised in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She moved to Louisiana in 2005 to attend Loyola University New Orleans, where she graduated with a degree in Visual Arts. She fell in love with the city and her husband, and they planted their roots and never left. Kelly-Atwater first picture book was Alligators Don’t Like Flowers. She is also the author-illustrator of Goodnight Pothole, Five Little Termites, and illustrator of Rainbow Rodney. Kelly-Atwater has been a featured author at the Louisiana Book Festival and the New Orleans Book Festival. When she’s not writing, drawing, and painting, Kelly-Atwater is raising her three kids and playing dress up as a larger-than-life flower with her Mardi Gras Krewe, Krewe des Fleurs. 

Andrea Peoples, DJ Ojay, and Kreative Arts Collective

Andrea Peoples is an experienced African, Afro Cuban, and Dunham Technique dancer and choreographer who has studied with some of the world’s greatest master dancers and musicians. Her African dance studies were under the tutelage of Djeneba Sako, Moustapha Bangoura, and multiple others. She studied the Dunham Technique under Keith Williams and Theodore Jamison and Afro Cuban dance under multiple teachers in Matanzas, Cuba, and the United States. Peoples is a well-respected cultural arts organizer and arts consultant who has worked with Kreative Arts Collective as CEO, Cuba Nola as event consultant and instructor, Three Keys at the Ace Hotel as a resident performer, Black Dance USA as co-coordinator, University of Missouri St. Louis theater department as head choreographer, Washington University as adjunct professor of dance, Tulane University as guest dance instructor, Young Audiences of Louisiana as teaching artist, Institute of Ashe Movement as dance director, and Dillard University as dance instructor.

Education and outreach initiatives at NOMA are supported in part by The Gayle and Tom Benson Foundation; the Lois and Lloyd Hawkins Jr. Foundation; The Helis Foundation; The City of New Orleans; 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; the Howard Foundation; Karen and Henry Coaxum; The Bruce J. Heim Foundation; and Laitram.