Atelier de la Nature, a 30-acre nature reserve and eco-educational campus, invites all children and families to the 2025 Halloween Art & Nature Festival, 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 “Enchanted Forest”!

The nature of South Louisiana’s forests, bayous, and swamps, is enchanting with their ethereal Spanish moss, fairy-like fireflies, mysteriously hooting owls, forest sirens, and “lamp-eater” amphiuma salamanders (among the largest amphibians in the world!), old-growth live oak trees, and so much more. We will explore how this magical nature shaped indigenous, Cajun, and Creole folklore, and through science, express the complex web of living connections in our special forest ecosystems.

Denise Gallagher created this year’s Enchanted Forest art referencing Louisiana folktales such as Madame Grand Droits (Lady Long Fingers), the feu follet (flames that lead unwitting travelers deeper into the swamp, a mischievous Latiche, Loup Garou, and more!

For the morning and afternoon session, we will host Southern artists and scientists as they create ways to talk with trees, sonify fungus, discover mycelial networks, explore the genetics of the Tree of Life, unicorn skeletons, and much more! Cosplay fairies, goblins, and other enchanted beings is encouraged.

An evening session will begin at 6 with an aerial performance, a Dungeons and Dragons tournament with a fantasy creature drawing contest, a glow-in-the-dark forest art installation, bat and bug hikes, other nocturnal activities, and camping after.

!!! MORE DETAILS COMING SOON !!!

**Registration required for morning, afternoon and evening sessions – The event is free but space is limited**