JAMNOLA stands for Joy, Art and Music, New Orleans, and its founders built it as a room-by-room tour of the city’s culture made almost entirely by local hands.
Founder Jonny Liss opened the first version in August 2020 on Royal Street in the Bywater, putting roughly $750,000 of his own money into the build during the pandemic. It ran there for nearly five years. On April 7, 2025, it closed that location, and four days later it reopened at 940 Frenchmen Street in the Marigny, inside the old Binder Bakery building. The move put it on the city’s best-known music strip and within a ten-minute walk of the French Quarter.
More than 100 New Orleans artists and collaborators built the 29 exhibits inside, and around 85 percent of the materials come from repurposed and recycled sources. Each room takes on a different piece of local culture, from music and food to Carnival and neighborhood theatrics. Visitors pass a bust of bounce star Big Freedia wearing a floral headband, step into a crawfish boil where the crawfish do the cooking, and walk a path paved with recycled Mardi Gras beads. An absinthe garden, a golden feast room, and a peacock sculpture turn up along the way. A virtual costume closet lets visitors try on looks, and 3D glasses handed out at the start make some of the artwork jump off the walls…