The Westbank has long been ostracized by New Orleanians. It’s the place nobody goes. Algiers Point was often the first place enslaved Africans stepped foot upon arrival and at one point, had the densest population of African people in the region. Most were enslaved and detained until they crossed the river to meet their fate at the auction. Others dispersed throughout the swampland on the Westbank and made a free life for themselves (from Cierra Chenier’s Algiers is very much New Orleans; was often the soil where enslaved ancestors first stepped foot). Fast forward 300 years and you’ll find Algiers Point to be majority white and highly priced. This doesn’t mean the descendants of enslaved Africans disappeared. They are still very much present on the Westbank and so are their stories.
Spirit will not be silenced.
When I first arrived in New Orleans, Algiers Point is where I landed. The neighborhood cradled me as I moved sometimes silently, sometimes violently through my own rebirth and resurrection. Through the lens of my home - the textures, the color palette, the bookshelves - I witnessed myself transforming. Before Spatial Therapy was ever a business, it was a spiritual practice. It was the acknowledgement that the house is a mirror and reflects back to you the things you’re willing to see, be they light and lovely or heavy and ugly. In time, I grew more comfortable being witnessed in this process and opened the space to trusted confidants.
During its five year run, the Art House welcomed creatives from California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, Texas, Tennessee and Washington D.C. It became a place where black creatives gathered to politic and pour into each other.
We felt powerful in that space.
We felt beautiful.
We felt free.
We felt safe and held when it was time to talk about heartache, ancestral trauma and the ways we constantly wrestle with the idea of freedom. We were empowered to re-imagine the future as we see fit for ourselves and our families.