Reagan Patrick Mitchell
New Orleans 2019: Experiencing / listening
Between the years of 1961 and 1969 the government procured the neutral ground as a green space and used it to construct Interstate 10. For this study, I explored the socio-sonic narratives surrounding this construction along with considering the meanings of echoes in order to better understand how the educational trends in the Black community of Faubourg Tremé shifted due to the construction of I-10. Collectively, the aural, oral and spatial interactions communities engage when together is what I refer to as the socio-sonic. Black educational spaces, in response to engaging the meanings of the construction, were something not relegated to the brick and mortar institution. Rather, Black educational spaces were those simultaneously embodied and/or places re-imagined in multidisciplinary capacities through socio-sonic community engagements. It is this consideration which functioned as grounding for my inquiry into the neutral grounds of Faubourg Tremé and the broader North Claiborne Avenue corridor. Altogether, this study resulted in increased understanding of how collective spatial embodiment and/or re-imagining of place occurs through communal memory in response to violent infrastructural change. An inquiry I formulated to engage community members was, How does consideration of environmental sound topographies extend perspectives in conceptualizing and educational space?