Our small artist-driven non-profit in New Orleans facilitates large scale cross-cultural collaborations that bring diverse artists, performers and members of the wider community together for large scale performances or creations. Our flagship project, the Music Box Village, features 15 installations of 'musical architecture'- these installations are interactive art sculptures that represent the aesthetic and sonic influences of their creators' shared vision. Through these projects, we bring national and internationally renowned artists together with New Orleans based designers, fabricators, inventors, sounds engineers and more. Musicians from all over the country and world have come to the Music Box Village to play these sonic art installations, recording sounds for albums or putting on major performances that include the architecture installations.

For our newest installation, our inspiration is the New Orleans // Democratic Republic of Congo historical relationship. Our partnering artists are two African American women whose work reflects the great history and struggling of the black African diaspora in our city. With our support, they will design and build a new installation for our site and produce a large-scale performance that illustrates the resilience and cultural legacy of DRC descended people in New Orleans. They will bring Papa Titos - an elder and culture bearer from the Congo - to New Orleans for this event and partner with local organizations like the Congo Square Preservation Society to bring dancers, drummers and others into the project.

This will be our first installation designed and build by African American women. We find it imperative to 'amplify black voices' on our site, and couldn't be more excited to work with Kara Olige, Executive Director of the Amistad Research Center, and Monique Moss, Artistic Director of Third Eye Theatre Interdisciplinary and Improvisational Performance Company.