B.L.O.C. x Bloc & Land Memory Initiative

Building Land, Opportunity & Community by Blueprinting Love Overcoming Chaos

BLOC x BLOC exists to preserve and reawaken the living legacy of historically Black neighborhoods in New Orleans through storytelling, land stewardship, and climate-conscious creative activation. Led by descendants of families who integrated housing, raised children across households, and sustained this city through labor, ingenuity, and care, the project restores connection to community, memory, and belonging.

This work recognizes that our neighborhoods carry more than history—they carry ecosystems. In a city shaped by flood, heat, and displacement, preservation must include water retention, native planting, and land practices that heal both people and place. BLOC x BLOC integrates rain gardens, permeable pathways, and native plantings to reduce heat-island effects, slow stormwater, and create breathable, resilient blocks where descendants can safely gather, return, and reconnect.

We see preservation not as a static monument, but as a living practice—rooted in the soil beneath our feet and in the people who carry its stories forward. Through this project, we are cultivating remembrance, environmental balance, and the creative power of return. Each block becomes a site of healing, each plant an archive, and each gathering an invitation to imagine a more rooted and restorative future for Black New Orleanians.

BLOC x BLOC transforms everyday spaces—yards, gardens, and community lots—into living archives of Black life. Each site becomes both garden and gallery: a place where stories are recorded, ancestral crops are planted, and history is experienced through art, food, and fellowship.

Our work will include:

Oral History Collection; Story Gardens; Memory Map; Homecoming Harvests; Workshops & Training

Land Activation | Creative Documentation | Descendant Engagement