The Museumgoer podcast

Conceived as a fundraising event for the St. Louis Cathedral restoration, "Sunday Best" became a more comprehensive look at the churchgoing finery of both parishioners and clergy -- and a showcase for curatorial imagination.

Here’s a conversation in the galleries with co-curator Sarah Waits and Christopher Wiseman, executive director of the Catholic Cultural Center of New Orleans, which oversees both the cathedral and convent museum. Images accompanying the interview are on the blog at themuseumgoer.com,

The episode starts with a recap of a recent stay at the Pontchartrain Hotel on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans.

The traveling exhibit “Indigeaux: Yes, Spirit. I’ll go …” recently arrived at the Whitney Plantation in Wallace. Created by Leia Lewis, an educator, artist, and self-described “light-bringer” and “cultural architect,” the exhibit features hand-dyed textiles and original artwork conceived as “an offering to the enslaved women whose hands were stained blue with indigo,” she says.

In this episode, the guests are Lewis and Dr. IbrahimaSeck, director of research at the plantation.

Images accompanying the conversation are on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.

Photo by Amy Marquis, courtesy of Whitney Plantation.

Brian Piper, Freeman Family Curator of Photographs, Prints, and Drawings at the New Orleans Museum of Art, discusses the photography exhibit on view through January 4, 2026.

Note: Piper asked for an addendum to the conversation, which is included at the end of the interview.

Images accompanying the podcast are on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.

September is National Library Card Sign-Up Month, a promotion by the American Library Association. In addition to all the free learning and entertainment a library card unlocks, there’s a pathway at your local branch -- almost everywhere you might be in Louisiana -- to free admission at some of the state’s best museums. In addition to all the learning that those programs unlock, the opportunity represents a potential savings ranging into thehundreds of dollars.

In this episode, the Museumgoer Podcast visits with HeatherRiley, the New Orleans library’s director of public services,and Billy Nungesser, who oversees the Louisiana State Museum system as lieutenant governor, to discuss a couple of library-based programs that provide free admission to museums around New Orleans and Louisiana.

As always, learn more at themuseumgoer.com.

This time, the Museumgoer Podcast guest is Sarah Waits, research archivist for the Office of Archives and Records at the Archdiocese of New Orleans, who discusses her research into sacramental records to build the family tree and documents that make up "Rooted in Faith" exhibit at the Old Ursuline Convent Museum.

The exhibit explores the Creole 7th Ward roots of Robert Francis Prevost, Pope Leo XIV as of May 8, 2025.

A photo of the exhibit is on the blog at themuseumgoer.com. Digital versions of the family tree and the documents Waits discovered can be found at oldursulineconventmuseum.com.

Since its opening in 2010, the Presbytere exhibition “Living with Hurricanes: Katrina and Beyond” has occupied some of the most valuable real estate in the Louisiana State Museum system and has arguably been the most important permanent museum exhibition in town.

Steps from the tourist magnet of Jackson Square, it’s been anengaging learning machine for visitors who only know the storm and its failed-levee aftermath through fading memories of live TV coverage of the catastrophe that came in the wake of Aug. 29, 2005.

To mark Katrina’s 20th anniversary, the exhibit isundergoing renovations to update its multimedia displays and to broaden and extend the city’s recovery timeline into the present.

In this episode, the conversation moves from Louisiana Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser to Karen Leathem, a State Museum historian and curator who was part of the team that did the original installation and who is now working on the renovation.

Images accompanying the conversation are on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.

New Orleans Museum Month is an annual promotion by New Orleans & Co. that runs throughout August, offering members of participating institutions two free admissions at all of the nearly 30 other institutions for the month.

In this episode, four local museum leaders discuss the benefits of museum membership beyond Museum Month.

Links to other Museum Month coverage can be found on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.

New Orleans had the first purpose-built Jewish orphanage inAmerica because New Orleans had Yellow Fever, an indiscriminate orphan-maker. On view at the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience through January 25, 2026,the changing exhibit “Most Fortunate Unfortunates: The Jewish Orphans’ Home of New Orleans” travels through a near-century of history.

Our guest this time is Michael Jacobs, MSJE’s collections and exhibits curator. Michael and I are joined in the gallery about halfway through by Marlene Trestman, author of “Most Fortunate Unfortunates,” a 2023 book the exhibit is based on.

Trestman was orphaned at age 11 and grew up as a foster care client of the Jewish Children’s Regional Service, successor to the Jewish Orphans’ Home.

Images accompanying the conversation are on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.

An in-gallery interview with Brian Piper, the New Orleans Museum of Art's Freeman Family Curator of Photographs, Prints and Drawings. We discuss the photography exhibit, on view through February 22, 2026, that explores life on -- and in -- the Mississippi River and its tributaries.

Images to accompany the conversation are on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.

A survey of some of the participants in the New Orleans Civil Rights Movement in the mid-20th century, "The Trail They Blazed" started its life as a series of oral histories, then became a traveling exhibit. It's on view at 520 Royal Street through early June 2026. Admission is free.

Images accompanying the conversation are on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.