Gwennie von Einsiedel likes to step outside her house and listen to birdsong. For the UL professor, it’s an act of awareness, of noticing.
“As an ethnomusicologist, I spend a lot of time thinking about how we hear the world, and I think that as humans, we move through extraordinary sonic environments on a daily basis, but we don’t ever necessarily stop to notice them or to really think about what we’re hearing,” she says.
That experience is the inspiration for Atchafalaya Remixed, a multimedia exhibition curated by von Einsiedel at the Hilliard Art Museum that invites audiences to sit, listen and ponder the natural world.
The exhibition, part of the Hilliard’s broader exploration of Pop Art in 2026, revolves around a recording called “Atchafalaya Soundscapes” taken by composer Earl Robicheaux. Captured over a 24-hour period, Robicheaux’s recording of the ambient and organic sounds of the swamp was condensed into an hour-long track that von Einsiedel sent to local musicians Keith Frank, The Babineaux Sisters, Danny Devilier and Trey Boudreaux…