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Halloween Art & Nature Festival

The 2022 Halloween Art & Nature Festival is a one-day free event to celebrate Halloween, Louisiana's special natural surroundings and planet Earth, through art, music, food and science.

This year’s festival theme is “Space” (outer-space, macroscopic, microscopic, and inside us space). Festival goers will have the opportunity to meet special guests including:

  • NASA Astronaut Nicole Stott of the Space for Art Foundation coming from Florida.

  • Stanford University Space Origami Engineer Dr. Manan Arya coming from California.

  • Award-winning Children’s Book Illustrator Jeffrey Ebbeler from Ohio.

  • Samone Wilson of NASA’s Stennis Space Center from Mississippi

**Registration required for morning and afternoon sessions– The event if free but space is limited** Register here: https://bit.ly/HalloweenFestival22

This year’s activities so far include:

  • Meet a real Astronaut and make art for Spacesuits

  • Rocket building and launch demo

  • Origami designs for space travel inspired by native plants demo and exhibition

  • Water Bears are everywhere! Hunting for Tardigrades workshop

  • Giant Interactive Water Droplet Installation

  • Wonderdome Microscopic Universe Exhibition

  • Terraforming terrarium workshop

  • Meteorite Exhibition and outreach program

  • Magnetism and Magnetic Materials demo and outreach

  • VR Solar energy program

  • Darth Gator drawing and engineering pop-up books workshop

  • Extraterrestrial Adaptation activity

  • Microscopic monsters from our backyard and famous films activity

  • Preserved “alien” specimens

  • Spine-tingling Story Telling in French, Spanish, English and Klingon

  • DIY Space Costume workshop using recycled/up-cycled materials

  • Intergalactic music

  • Live snakes and other reptiles

  • Live spiders and other creepy crawlers with arthropod inspired robots

  • Traditional Cajun and Creole cooking using locally sourced ingredients

  • Solar S’mores and Astronaut Food

  • Eating Aliens! Invasive species cooking demo

  • Trick or Treating

  • Celestial Pumpkin Decorating

  • More to be announced

Additional Event Information :

The 2022 Master of Ceremonies will be Renella Rose Champagne of KRVS’s “Lost in Love” program.

Music performances by the Aeronautical Pioneers and DJ Dark Helmet curated by Laura Huval of Sweet Cecilia and Al Berard Memorial Music Fund.

This year’s food will be prepared by Chef Colt Patin (a Certified Executive Chef and Certified Chef Instructor), his students from the Culinary Institute in Baton Rouge, and the Cub Scouts Pack 301 (Breaux Bridge, LA), who will serve Cajun and Creole dishes prepared with local and seasonal ingredients. As well as workshops on eating invasive species by New Orleans Chef April Bellow.

Participating Individuals and Organizations:

  • Acadiana Native Plant Project (Arnaudville, LA)

  • Acadiana Master Naturalists Outdoor Adventure Kids (Lafayette, LA)

  • Andy Gracie, Artist (Barcelona, Spain)

  • Anne Bujold Studio (Lafayette, LA)

  • Linda Hooper Bui, Ph.D., LSU Department of Environmental Science (BatonRouge, LA)

  • Carey Hamburg, Artist (Lafayette, LA)

  • NASA’s Stennis Space Center (Hancock County, Mississippi)

  • Coastal Plains Outdoor School (Lumberton, Mississippi)

  • Culinary Institute of Baton Rouge (Baton Rouge, LA)

  • Cub Scouts Pack 301 (Parks, LA)

  • Jeffrey Ebbeler Illustration (Cincinnati, Ohio)

  • Lynda Frese Studio (Breaux Bridge, LA)

  • Jadhav Manavi, Ph.D., UL Assistant Professor Laboratory Astrophysics and Cosmochemistry (Lafayette, LA)

  • Meagan Moore, Artist/ Scientist/ Educator (Baton Rouge, LA)

  • Gerard Perrone, Nature Study Project (New Orleans, LA)

  • Red Hatter Productions (Lafayette, LA)

  • Carey Ritter, Ph.D., University of Louisiana at Lafayette College of Engineering - Department of Mechanical Engineering - Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Energy Center (Lafayette, LA)

  • Stanford University Morphing Space Structures Laboratory (Stanford, California)

  • University of Louisiana at Lafayette the Ray P. Authement College of Sciences - Department of Physics - Society of physics students (SPS), (Lafayette, LA)

  • Nicole Stott, Space for Art Foundation (St. Petersburg, Florida)

  • Dough Williams, Ph.D., UL Department of Educational Curriculum & Instruction (EDCI)- Director of The Center for Innovative Learning and Assessment Technology (CILAT), (Lafayette, LA)

  • Deuxième Vie Creative (Lafayette, LA)

  • TECHE Project (Breaux Bridge, LA)

  • International Crane Foundation

  • Prosanta Chakrabarty, Ph.D., Museum of Natural Science at LSU (Baton Rouge, LA)

  • Louisiana Amphibian and Reptile Enthusiasts (L.A.R.E.)

  • The Beetle Experience (Lafayette, LA)

  • Crystal & Michael Giles (Knoxville, TN)

  • The 501st Legion, Bast Alpha Garrison

  • And more!

**Registration required for morning and afternoon sessions– The event if free but space is limited** Register here: https://bit.ly/HalloweenFestival22

About Atelier de la Nature:

Atelier de la Nature is a twenty-five-acre nature reserve and eco-educational campus located in the heart of Louisiana’s Cajun country, that aims to inspire people to steward the nature in their own backyards and learn how, collectively, we can protect these natural gifts for future generations. Started in 2017 by biologist and artist Brandon Ballengée, and sustainable food educator Aurore Ballengée, Atelier de la Nature’s programs use active learning methods that combine art with science and nature-based education as a means to empower people to become stewards of their local environment. Louisiana ranks among the worst states in the nation for science education and we want to help fix this! Likewise, art is not taught nor available to most students in our or other surrounding Parishes and we want to help children learn to express themselves through the arts.

For more information on this amazing event visit: www.facebook.com/atelierdelanature

Or email: info@atelierdelanature.org

Or call: 337-761-6335 or 646-726-1387

Sponsors:

The Al Berard Memorial Music Fund at Community Foundation of Acadiana.

Supported by a 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, as administered by the Acadiana Center for the Arts. Funding has also been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.”

Sponsored by the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board

Sponsored by St. Martin Parish Tourism Commission

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April 23

Fête de la Nature - BioBlitz and Crawfish Benefit

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February 12

“Eat Your Yard!" A Wild Edibles Foraging Walk and Cooking Demo