Community programming, Baton Rouge

Finding Grounding offers connection to our shared environment, ecology, and histories through exhibitions, artist-led workshops, and nature connection experiences. Using Renee Royale and Heather Bird Harris’ creative practices as an opening, this project invites connection with place and self through grounded creative and reflective practices. Selected artwork by Renee Royale will rotate between Greenwell Springs Road Regional Branch Library and Fairwood Branch Library between October 2 and November 9, 2023. During the library exhibitions, each artist will lead a workshop in collaboration with outdoor educator Lilia Kapsali-Grant. Heather Bird Harris’ workshop will include an exploration of painting with earth pigments while Renee Royal will share her photographic practices, which often rely on collected water and organic matter.  

Finding Grounding is curated by Courtney Taylor, Director of Galleries at LSU College of Art & Design and Lilia Kapsali-Grant. This exhibition is a collaboration between LSU College of Art & Design and the East Baton Rouge Parish Library with support from the Windgate Foundation. Harris and Royale’s work will join a larger exhibition in LSU’s Barnes Ogden Gallery scheduled for November 15, 2023–January 28, 2024. 

Heather Bird Harris 

Heather ‘Bird’ Harris is an artist and history educator based in Atlanta. Through painting and social practice, she engages site-specific materials to explore the through lines between land history and environmental crises, as well as mothering in the face of climate change. Harris received her B.S. in art history and studio art from Skidmore College and master’s degree in education leadership from Columbia University. Harris has served as principal of a turnaround school in New Orleans and has consulted with school leaders across the South to implement equitable learning practices and empowering history education. Her work has been exhibited at Art Fields, Stoveworks, the University of New Mexico, and has been featured nationally on NPR, Sea Change podcast, and the All We Can Save Project. In the spring of 2023, Harris facilitated the first iteration of her community-based experience and installation The Land Memory Project as part of Science Gallery Atlanta’s JUSTICE exhibition season. Harris was recently announced as one of 7 artists selected for Emory University’s Arts & Social Justice Fellowship.  

Renee Royale 

Renee Royale is an artist, writer, independent curator, and digital strategist. Born in New York, she is a dual citizen of the United States and Barbados, and is currently based in New Orleans. She endeavors to diversify the experiences and relationships we have with art, utilizing innovative methods and modern technology to break down socioeconomic and institutionalized barriers for a more equitable, authentic art world. As an artist, her practice is rooted in visual explorations of humans and the environments that we inhabit. Her most recent works center studies of deep time, call-and-response from an ecological perspective, trauma responses, and birthright. She employs the use of medium format and Polaroid films, found materials, mixed media, performance art, and video in her visual storytelling, interweaving disciplines at whim to add layers and context to what is being conveyed.  

Exhibition Schedule 

Library-Based Rotating Exhibition: October 2–November 9, 2023  

Greenwell Springs Road, Regional Branch Library  

11300 Greenwell Springs Road, Baton Rouge, LA 70814  

Renee Royale, October 2–22 // Heather Bird Harris, October 24–November 9 

Fairwood Branch Library  

12910 Old Hammond Hwy., Baton Rouge, LA 70816  

Heather Bird Harris, October 2–22 // Renee Royale, October 24–November 9   

LSU Exhibition: November 15, 2023–January 28, 2024  

Barnes Ogden Art & Design Complex Gallery