Open by appointment and for calendared events.

Cost: Free – Open to the public

Crevasse 22 is an ongoing outdoor sculpture exhibition staged at the sight of a devastating crevasse, a massive breach in the levee on the Mississippi River which flooded much of St. Bernard Parish, just below the city of New Orleans. That crevasse gave New Orleans leaders the erroneous idea to blow up the nearby levee to prevent the flooding of New Orleans in the historic flood of 1927. The flooding of the city was actually averted by a crevasse upriver of the city, which rendered the second destruction of St. Bernard Parish tragically unnecessary.

Presently works by Elizabeth Shannon, Serge Loncar, Erica Larkin-Gaudet, Gene Koss, Christopher Saucedo, Luis Colmenares, Susan Gisleson, Mitchell Gaudet, and Robert Tannen recall the destruction and misguided public policies that continue today to jeopardize the threatened low lying lands and marshes of the region. Other artists who previously exhibited temporary works on the site include Monique Verdin, Gabrielle Gaspard, Dan Alley, Michel Varisco, and Jennifer Odem.

The exhibition is also meant to invite a better awareness of the natural beauty of a parish known primarily for the massive “sculptures” of the petrochemical industry. The site of the exhibition is just a half hour drive downriver from New Orleans in St. Bernard Parish and offers classic Louisiana landscapes of arching oak trees dripping Spanish Moss and a tear shaped lake carved by the crevasse into a former bayou. The land borders a state national park known for its fishing and camping and is ironically located just above the Caernarvon Diversion.

Directions:  Take St. Claude Avenue to the bridge, keep going as St. Claude veers left and becomes St. Bernard Highway. Travel down St. Bernard Highway for about 12 miles, passing through a canopy of live oak trees and two port sites. After the second port, where a large military ship is berthed, go to the next stop light, with Guillory’s grocery on the left, and a purple and pink snowball stand on the right and turn right. Without coming out of the turn, see the Saro Lane sign, and signs for the River House. Stay right, passing through a small suburban area; proceed almost to the levee, where a gate opening on the left welcomes you to the Crevasse 22 site. You will be directed where to park.

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