Friday Nights at NOMA returns for an exciting lineup of programs in 2019: live music, movies, children’s activities, and more. Regular admission prices apply—NOMA members are FREE—but there is no extra charge for programs or films. All galleries, the Museum Shop, and Café NOMA remain open till 9 pm.

In celebration of the Saints’ NFC championship, visitors wearing the team’s jerseys, apparel, or black and gold colors will be admitted FREE after 4 pm. 

• 5 – 8 pm: Art on the Spot family activity table
• 5:30 – 8:30 pm: Music by Extended Trio
• 6-8 pm: Series of Small Talks in the exhibition Ear to the Ground: Earth and Element in Contemporary Art

ABOUT EXTENDED TRIO

Extended Trio is a New Orleans-based, modern-jazz, piano band featuring Brad Webb, Matt Booth, and Oscar Rossignoli as composers.

ABOUT EAR TO THE GROUND: EARTH AND ELEMENT IN CONTEMPORARY ART

Working with natural elements like earth, wind, water and fire, the artists in Ear to the Ground show how nature can spur artistic innovation and spark new thinking about human culture and community. In their art, nature is not just as a resource to be protected or exploited, but rather a generative force with its own sentient power. Mining earth both as a material and a metaphor, the artists in this exhibition treat nature as a teacher: a model for negotiating the complexities of contemporary cultural life. Informed by a kind of elemental logic, their art envisions new ways we might relate to the natural world, as well as to one another.

The following ten-to-fifteen-minute Small Talks by artists represented in the exhibition will take place throughout the evening:

• 6 – 6:30 pm: Cristina Molina is a visual artist who creates video installations that include still imagery and sculptural forms. Molina’s non linear, hypnotic works centralize female protagonists within historical, mythical, and autobiographical narratives. Her artwork has been exhibited at various national and international venues.
• 6:30 – 6:45 pm: Diedrick Brackens thoughtfully employs the language of weaving and textile making to explore the intersections of identity and sociopolitical issues in the United States. Brackens uses calculated woven algorithms that stem from the cultural histories of African, American, and European textiles to generate his intricate tapestries, seeking to highlight the complexities of African-American identity while also focusing on the loom and its significance to cultural production.
• 7 – 7:30 pm: Sara Madandar is a US-based artist from Iran. She currently works in painting, sculpture,video and performance. Her work is mostly about the relationship of the human to their bodies and covers. She materializes the issues of existing in an in-between space through construction and deconstruction of the canvas. Her work evokes a sensation out of destruction and touches on the cultural displacements of corporeality. Her video, video installations, and performances are influenced by her emigration and comparison between cultures.
• 8 pm: Dan Alley grew up in Alaska and did his undergraduate work at Washington State University, where he received a BFA in ceramics. In 2014 he earned an MFA in glass art and currently serves there as an adjunct professor.

Friday Nights at NOMA is supported in part by grant funds from the Azby Fund; Ruby K. Worner Charitable Trust; New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and Foundation; and the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, in cooperation with the Louisiana State Arts Council.