New Orleans Airlift

Biography

Featuring co-founder Delaney Martin in collaboration with members Taylor Lee Shepherd and Alita Edgar, New Orleans Airlift, established in 2008, is an artist-driven non-profit that not only creates but also funds and produces most of its own work. Operating largely in the streets and open air, Airlift’s people-powered, multi-disciplinary public spectacles of increasingly large magnitude take many forms.

Among Airlift’s recent exhibitions are its flagship project, The Music Box Village, New Orleans (2016 to date); Music Box Outposts, Prattsville Art Center, US (2019); Tourists, North Adams, US (2017); Contemporary Art Museum, University of South Florida, Tampa, US (2016); Goat Farm Arts Center, Atlanta, US (2014); Shreveport Regional Arts Council, US (2013) and Mysteski Arsenale, Kiev, Ukraine (2012); Porch Life, The Kennedy Center, Washington, DC; Coney Island, New York; Dabls’ MBAD African Bead Museum, Detroit, US and Eaux Claires Festival, US (2018); Remember Us, Prospect 4 Biennial, New Orleans (2017); Earmarks II, MASS MoCA, North Adams (2017) and New Water Music (in partnership with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra), Lake Pontchartrain, New Orleans (2017). One of Airlift’s musical houses is currently in an extended residence at MASS MoCA, North Adams.

Airlift has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (2018), MAP Fund (2016), Black Rock Arts Foundation (2010, 2014, 2016) and Education Foundation of America (2012, 2014).

Martin holds a BA in Creative Writing and Film from the University of Southern California and a MRes from the London Consortium. Edgar earned a BA in Clinical Psychology from Smith College and an MS in Urban Planning and Historic Preservation from the Pratt Institute. Shepherd is self-taught.

Martin was born in 1976 in Honolulu, Edgar in 1980 in Dallas and Shepherd in 1974 in Atlanta. All three live and work in New Orleans.

SAF participation:
Sharjah Biennial 14