Teenagers’ biggest complaint about living in a city like Baton Rouge is that there’s not much to do. Either you go to the movies, go bowling or go out to eat. Rinse and repeat. Some of us spend our time dreaming of moving to big, exciting cities like Los Angeles or New York City. Others go to New Orleans or Lafayette to have fun. On the surface, it seems like Baton Rouge has little to offer our creativity and passion for adventure.
As a child, I was perpetually bored with the limited opportunities to explore, often relying on my own imagination to get me through long summers. I believe that’s what spurred the incredible artistic talent that I’ve come to realize exists in my peers. This city’s art scene is flourishing, but you have to be willing to look for it.
College is when I learned how truly artistically inclined my generation is. Everyone is trying to market their art, whether it’s clothing, paintings, music, photography or theatre. As a whole, we’re a demographic considered selfish and lazy, which I don’t disagree with. Apathy and complacency are plagues among us. But here’s a different perspective: we just don’t care about the things we’re supposed to care about anymore.
After Hurricane Katrina, Baton Rouge and New Orleans’ younger communities mixed together to create a flow of ideas and cultures unlike any other. Children have become less academically driven and more focused on recognizing each other’s aesthetic value. As a photographer, I found most of my passion in being able to share my work with my peers and collaborate with people my age. Our new age technology and social media emphasis may aggravate parents who want us off our cellphones and computers, but it helps us share our ideas with one another. That’s a privilege never afforded to any generation before us.
There are events in every part of the city for artists and non-artists that are put on by students. There are weekly poetry slams downtown, flow artists on the levee, music shows at almost every major college venue, artists with pop up shops and so much more. Even the local libraries offer cool hobby classes where you can learn weird skills like knitting or making chameleons out of beads.
We come together to enjoy music and art in the form of festivals, parties, open mic nights and other community gatherings. There is an intimate connection among people who are involved with these kinds of events, a connection that is almost impossible to achieve in a classroom setting.
It’s hard to appreciate the things that we have to offer one another because we’re more disconnected from reality than ever before. Maybe it’s true that we’re blinded by greed for money and fame, but at the heart of that is a real love for appreciating the beauty of the world through artistic media. The growing hunger for expression away from academics has created an environment that I feel allows me to incorporate art into everyday life. It’s changed my mindset about the world because my peers are constantly pushing me to create.
Create anything. Create everything. We create our own reality. This is the truth that drives us. This is our freedom.
Anjana Nair is an 18-year-old international studies sophomore from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.