Beau Patrick Coulon: REVEL & REVOLT

Revel & Revolt is a new photo book by Beau Patrick Coulon, a co-edition with Burn Barrel Press and Defend New Orleans’ imprint: DNO books. Coulon presents his straightforward-yet-personal visual documentation of protests, parades, and the punk scene in New Orleans from 2013 to 2020.

‘Revel & Revolt’ photobook could not be materialised in such a powerful visual documentation if it wasn’t for the incredible talent and the lived experience that Beau holds. The photo book allows you to view the subjects’ s moments of anger, sadness, bliss with an openness, direct and unaffected manner that only a photographer with a real understanding and connection with the world that they inhabit may have. Beau’s journey to photography has been an interesting one. He was born in Hollywood and he spent much of his childhood between California, Florida, and Oklahoma. At 13, he moved out of his mom’s apartment to live on the streets with punks he met on Hollywood Blvd while skipping school.

Coulon travelled across the country by freight train and lived among a network of derelict squats, punk houses, collectives, and DIY art spaces. He first arrived in New Orleans in the mid-90s and found work that ranged from seasonal farming, doing demolition, pouring concrete to framing. These experiences gave him an unparalleled view of life and an understanding of class struggles and nomadic living.

Coulon’s life is different today however his photographs speak of the past, transitional living and of history that reminds us all of struggle and fortitude, beauty and despair.