Catalyzing community self-representation
Open Sound New Orleans was a participatory community soundmap, active from 2007 to 2012. With Heather Booth, I was co-founder and co-director of the project, which invited and enabled New Orleanians to document their lives in sound, and provided a forum to share and disseminate that work.
Participants recorded stories, ambient sound, music and interviews, and geolocated them to the place they were recorded. We lent recording equipment – and offered training in its use – to community organizations, neighborhood groups, and individuals to ensure a diversity of direct dispatches from around the city. Participants produced hundreds of recordings, many of which were featured widely in local and global media, including NPR's Weekend Edition.
The project was made possible through grants and awards from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, and many others—as well as through the generous support of individual donors.
To access the Open Sound New Orleans archive, please visit https://archive-it.org/organizations/1158.
