On opening day of Helen Cammock: I Will Keep My Soul in New Orleans—we welcome you to join us in the galleries of U.N.O. St. Claude Gallery to celebrate the presentation of this work in the city where it was made on Saturday, November, 14, 2023 at the U.N.O. St. Claude Gallery from 6pm-9pm CT.

Performances by Helen Cammock, Zahria Sims, and Keni Anwar across the evening will pay tribute to the sounds, rhythms, and histories that reverberate in Cammock’s work and in the community that nourishes it.

Doors open at 6pm; welcome remarks and performances begin at 6:30pm. This event is free and open to the public.

Location:
U.N.O. Gallery
2429 St. Claude Avenue
New Orleans, LA

Keni Anwar is a New Orleans-based artist. Anwar’s work responds to their experience as a queer Black person in the American South. They is a writer, visual artist, and musician who studied public relations and graphic design at Loyola University, New Orleans. Anwar draws inspiration from the Nile and Mississippi Rivers, the color blue, and ancestral veneration in their exploration of past trauma and the pursuit of individual exploration and freedom. Their Southern Baptist heritage is often the lens through which they explore race, gender, and sexual identity in what are mainly self-portraits in various mediums that incorporate words, imagery, and sound. Anwar’s work invites others to examine their own worlds and origins as a path to self-liberation.

Zahria Sims is a New Orleans-based saxophonist, composer, recording artist, and bandleader. Sims’s passion for music is a reflection of her upbringing; both her parents are well-versed in the gospel genre. Sims is a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She is a graduate from Loyola University with a B.A. in Music Industries where she participated in Jazz Band, Contemporary Ensemble, and Concert Band. She has performed at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, the National Fried Chicken Festival, Gentilly Fest. She holds a weekly residency at the Jazz Playhouse with Big Sam’s Funky Nation. In 2019 she founded the Zahria Sims Collective, an ensemble that focuses on Black American music, and is preparing to release a debut album in 2024.

Supported by a Louisiana Project Grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism in cooperation with the Louisiana State Arts Council.