Public Story
Back When The Good Times Rolled
Aline Smithson, is the curator for this month's show.
Part of the exclusive online showroom developed by All About Photo, this exhibition is on view for the months of January 2022 and includes twenty photographs from the series 'Back When The Good Times Rolled, 2009 to 2020'
BACK WHEN THE GOOD TIMES ROLLED, 2009 TO 2020
Since moving to New Orleans in 2008, I have documented and preserved a record of New Orleans' "second line" parades, thereby capturing for posterity images of a unique and vital part of New Orleans' Black cultural heritage. Although the term "second line" comes from the dancing and strutting followers of a parading brass band, it encompasses the entire parade—the brass band (the "first line," or "main line") and its followers (the "second line"). I have taken tens of thousands of color photographs of the second lines by following the weekly parades, which run most of the year, except for holidays, Jazz Fest, and the hottest part of summer—and which were canceled last year because of coronavirus when the good times ceased rolling. I have formed relationships with some of the social aid and pleasure clubs that sponsor the parades, allowing greater access and ease of navigation, resulting in varied and distinctive photographs that vividly capture the paraders' elaborate custom-designed, hand-sewn costumes and parasols, and the hundreds of dancing parade followers. The parades, rich in ceremony and ritual, exuberantly express the right of Black Americans to publicly parade, not always a given in the American South when parading began in the late 1800s. As paraders move through New Orleans neighborhoods, they are carrying on a vibrant cultural and artistic tradition. My photographs reveal the festive mood of these sacred moments of cultural celebration and seek to transmit through the art of photography the joy and vibrancy of the second lines.
Charles Muir Lovell - Back When The Good Times Rolled 2009 to 2020All-about-photo.com
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