• Yes

Tina Freeman explores this question through photographic diptychs pairing Roman fortifications with New Orleans’s levees and floodwalls. This will be the first showing of these personal, powerful visual essays on the politics and psychology of walls.

Built to keep “others” out, control nature, manage commerce, and display power, walls also serve as symbols of fear, expressing our desire for safety, order, and permanence. They also define cultural belonging and shape the relationships on either side.

When does protection become separation?

Often, the impulse to create boundaries meets an opposing impulse to cross, challenge, or dismantle them.

This exploration offers an early look at a developing book by photographer Tina Freeman and writer Morgan Molthrop. Visitors are invited to consider the pairings, share their interpretations, and join a conversation that will help shape the work.

——

A POP- UP
This pop-up exhibition presents the first public showing of photographic diptychs from Levees & Empires, a developing book project by Tina Freeman in collaboration with writer Morgan Molthrop. Conceived as a place for viewing and exchange, the exhibition invites visitors to contribute observations, questions, and critical feedback while the project is taking shape.

The work began with a personal experience. When COVID laid bare the boundaries between friends and others, Freeman began photographing walls as a metaphor for that distance. Over several years, the inquiry expanded to encompass the walls of Rome and the levees and floodwalls of New Orleans, exploring the relationships between protection and separation, political power and personal boundaries.

Collaboration introduced another layer.

Photographs from Rome formed one collection; those from New Orleans formed another. Freeman and Molthrop considered the images together, discovering pairings through correspondences in light, line, color, texture, and theme. Images made in different places and moments began to generate unexpected narratives through their proximity.

The diptych itself embodies the project’s central question. Two photographs share a frame of reference, yet a boundary remains between them. The viewer looks across that boundary, discovering connections, tensions, and meanings that emerge from the pairing.

These questions also extend to the making and reception of art. How do collaborators negotiate individual perspectives and shared authorship? When do creative boundaries provide structure, and when do they limit discovery? How can criticism invite people into a conversation—or exclude them from it?

The pop-up brings these questions into the room. Visitors are invited to look closely, discuss what they see, and consider how the pairings change their understanding of each photograph. Their responses will help inform the evolving book and extend a project that began with a difficulty in communication into an opportunity for dialogue.

Friday, December 4, at 6 p.m. — The Perfect Pairing: Create Your Own Diptych
How do two photographs become more than the sum of their parts? Photographer Tina Freeman and writer Morgan Molthrop introduce Levees & Empires and discuss their process of pairing photographs of Roman walls with New Orleans levees. Guests are then invited to experiment with pairings of their own, exploring how light, line, color, texture, and subject create unexpected connections and stories. The evening invites conversation about collaboration, interpretation, and the boundaries between images.

Saturday, December 5, at 5 p.m. — Levees & Empires: Public Pop-Up Opening
Join us at Tina Freeman’s Julia Street studio for the first public exhibition of these photographic diptychs. Meet the photographer and her collaborator, explore the pairings, and contribute your observations to a conversation that will help shape the developing book.