Christopher Porché West

Christopher Porché West is an award‐winning photographer and artist who has been documenting the people and culture of News Orleans for thirty years. A native Californian with Franco‐European roots in Louisiana, Porché West first came to New Orleans in the late 1970s on a fellowship from the University of California at Santa Cruz. Captivated by the city, he returned in 1981 to undertake a self‐directed photo‐documentary on the daily lives and cultural activity of contemporary New Orleans Creoles of Color and African Americans, including the elaborate costumes of Mardi Gras Indians, passing rites, community occurrences, neighborhood scenes, and jazz funerals.

Porché West has been featured in more than forty exhibitions. Collections of his work can be found in the archives of the Historic New Orleans Collection, the New Orleans Museum of Art, Harvard University, the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, the Smithsonian Institution, and the University of California at Santa Cruz and San Diego. Porché West currently lives and works in one of New Orleans’ oldest neighborhoods, Bywater, founded in 1809, where he continues to document and preserve the culture and life of New Orleans and its people.