The Float Lab
Invisible Rivers is a project of The Land Memory Bank and Mondo Bizarro and Jeff Becker that uses music, theater, visual art and boat-building to respond to our region’s interconnected struggles against coastal land loss, environmental racism and displacement. We are physically modeling ideas about how we can learn to live with fluctuation, to live with uncertainty, and to live in symbiosis with our increasingly watery world.


The creative team for Invisible Rivers has been making art about the environmental crisis we face in Southeast Louisiana for nearly two decades. The Land Memory Bank is led by Monique Verdin. Monique is a citizen and former councilwoman of South Louisiana’s United Houma Nation and is a part of the Another Gulf Is Possible Collaborative’s core leadership circle of brown (indigenous, latinx and desi) women. She has intimately documented the complex interconnectedness of environment, economics, culture, climate and change in southeast Louisiana for decades. Her indigenous Houma relatives and their ways of life at the ends of the bayous, in the heart of America’s Mississippi River Delta, have been the primary focus of her storytelling practice.
Jeff Becker is a designer, director and sculptor who specializes in audience interactive performances and outdoor spectacles. His work focuses on issues surrounding racism, abuse of power and environmental justice. He has toured extensively nationally and abroad and is the recipient of numerous awards and grants. Jeff is the co-founder of Catapult, a performance laboratory in New Orleans dedicated to the development of original theater and innovative design.
Mondo Bizarro is a New Orleans-based company led by Artistic Director Nick Slie. Mondo Bizarro has been creating interdisciplinary art and fostering creative partnerships in local, national and international communities for twenty years. Our creative endeavors range from ensemble performances to large-scale community festivals, from innovative digital storytelling projects to site-responsive productions. As artists of place, our journeys begin and end in New Orleans: we tour to embolden our efforts here. Our creations embody the urgency of our desire to listen to our land and culture, develop allies in collective action, and provide a platform for using art as a tool to understand what makes us commonly human and individually unique.
Monique Verdin is a citizen and former councilwoman of south Louisiana’s United Houma Nation and is a part of the Another Gulf Is Possible Collaborative core leadership circle of brown (indigenous, latinx and desi) women. She has intimately documented the complex interconnectedness of environment, economics, culture, climate and change in southeast Louisiana, for decades. Her indigenous Houma relatives and their lifeways at the ends of the bayous, in the heart of America’s Mississippi River Delta, has been the primary focus of her storytelling practice. She is the subject/co-writer/co-producer of the documentary My Louisiana Love. Her interdisciplinary work has been included in an assortment of environmentally inspired projects, including Cry You One as well as the publication Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas. Monique is also the director of The Land Memory Bank & Seed Exchange
Nick Slie is a New Orleans-born performer, producer and cultural organizer whose family has been living in Southeast Louisiana for eight generations. He is the Artistic Director of Mondo Bizarro. Since 2002, Nick has developed a wide array of imaginative projects that have toured to art centers, universities and outdoor locations in 38 states across the country and abroad. But he is most proud of the work he does at home, in New Orleans, where the land kisses the water. Nick’s creative endeavors range from interdisciplinary solo performances to large-scale community festivals, from innovative digital storytelling projects to site-responsive productions. From 2004-2008, he served on the Executive Committee of Alternate ROOTS and is the former board chair for the Network of Ensemble Theaters. He currently serves on the boards for Goat in the Road and The North American Cultural Laboratory. Nick recently directed Clear Creek Creative's Ezell: Ballad of a Land Man and is developing his latest project Invisible Rivers.
Jeff Becker is a designer, director and sculptor who specializes in audience interactive performances and outdoor spectacles. His work focuses on issues surrounding racism, abuse of power and environmental justice. He has toured extensively nationally and abroad and is the recipient of numerous awards and grants. Jeff is the co-founder of Catapult, a performance laboratory in New Orleans dedicated to the development of original theater and innovative design.
Invisible Rivers is a project of The Land Memory Bank and Mondo Bizarro that uses music, theater, visual art and boat-building to respond to our region’s interconnected struggles against coastal land loss, environmental racism and displacement. We are physically modeling ideas about how we can learn to live with fluctuation, to live with uncertainty, and to live in symbiosis with our increasingly watery world.
Our indigenous ancestors in Louisiana created floating adaptations for generations, living as they did along the powerful and capricious river that is the unfettered Mississippi. These floating boat/barge/home/villages demonstrate a flexible relationship between land and water that has been disregarded and overengineered in the past century. Working with her family of indigenous Houma Nation boat builders who work as welders in South Louisiana’s oil fields, Monique Verdin has already researched and developed the Float Lab, which will travel by land and water to communities that host Invisible Rivers events. This 15’ by 8 ½’ pontoon platform boat is outfitted with adjustable walls that - when extended - become a 26’ by 23’ stage and a display area for exhibitions. The Float Lab is one centerpiece of the Invisible Rivers project, and it is designed and built as a blank canvas to allow for various types of experimentation related to how we can live on water. Part field station for community engagement, part performance venue, the Float Lab will serve as an activation site to bring our ancestral, cultural and physical knowledge of the wild, free-flowing past into the present.
Programming and Exhibitions at the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans are made possible through generous support from: The Andrew Mellon Foundation; Art for Justice Fund, a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors; The Helis Foundation, the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Foundation; The Welch Foundation; The RosaMary Foundation; Greater New Orleans Foundation; National Performance Network; New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation; CAC President’s Council members: Valerie Besthoff, Susan & Ralph Brennan, Dathel & Thomas Coleman, Robyn Dunn Schwarz and Andrew Schwarz, Aimée & Michael Siegel, Staci Rosenberg, Jane B. & Rodney Steiner, MK Wegman & Lisa Mount, Dian & Tom Winingder; and CAC Silver Circle members: Virginia Besthoff & Nancy Aronson, Jessica Bride & Nick Mayor, Jane Cooper & Bob Heaps, Leslie & Jonathan Fawer, John Foley, Tina Freeman & Philip Woollam, Gina Monette, Marcy H. Monrose Curtis & Charles Curtis, Greg Montgomery, Barbara & Biff Motley, Michael Schneider, Sharon SIlvers, Jane & I. William Sizeler, and Gretchen & Scott R. Wheaton. We are also grateful for the generous in-kind support from The Domain Companies; Corporate Realty; and Old No. 77 Hotel and Chandlery; as well as our community partners: Mr. Wolf; Loyola University; Dancing Grounds; Prospect New Orleans; Voice of the Experienced; and Women with a Vision.