About
An Intertribal collective of Artists, Educators, Researchers, Gardeners, Herbalists, Water Protectors, Land Defenders and Culture Keepers are stewarding Nanih Bvlbancha as one of Prospect New Orleans Artist of Public Memory modern monument initiative.
In early 2024, Dr. Tammy Greer, Ida Aronson, Jenna Mae, Ozone 504 and Monique Verdin invited community to join in helping to build and activate an earthen mound to honor our ancestors and anchor our future. The site will include native plant gardens and a stickball field with intentions to provide pathways to health and healing, as well as a site for contemporary Indigenous lifeways, and communal gatherings.
The collective and their networks have been working in collaboration with each other and their Indigenous communities to make visible the Intertribal histories and present realities across Louisiana and the Gulf South.
1900 Lafitte on the Greenway
Learn more about Indigenous Sites
Nanih Bvlbancha Builders
- Dr. Tammy Greer is a citizen of the United Houma Nation (UHN) and director of the Center for American Indian Research and Studies at the University of Southern Mississippi. She is a medicine wheel garden steward and a documentarian of Houma culture. Dr. Greer works with traditional plants used by Indigenous Peoples of the southeastern United States.
- Ida Aronson is a citizen of the United Houma Nation (UHN), a member of the Houma Language Project and the Okla Hina Ikhish Holo network, and a founding member of the Bvlbancha Collective and Bvlbancha Public Access. Aronson is a multimedia artivist working across visual arts fields, lighting design and event production, and cultural crafts such as basket weaving.
- Jenna Mae is a mixed southeastern creature of Eastern Siouan, Mvskoke, and Cherokee descent. As a poet, parent, gardener, ethnographer, and community herbalist, Jenna Mae dreams in Ancestral futures with beloved community in Bvlbancha. (Okla Hina Ikhish Holo, Bvlbancha Collective, Bvlbancha Liberation Radio, Hachotakni Haco)
- Ozone 504 is an East Tennessee Melungeon (Saponi, Monocan, and Lenni Lenape descent), who found himself magically transported to Bvlbancha through a trick of fate at the end of the 20th century. He resides in the 9th Ward. He is a social practice artist, producer/engineer of Bvlbancha Liberation Radio, and arts editor and design director of Bulbancha is Still a Place zine, among other liberatory plots.
- Monique Verdin is an transdisciplinary artist and storyteller who documents the complex relationship between environment, culture, and climate in southeast Louisiana. She is a citizen of the Houma Nation, director of The Land Memory Bank & Seed Exchange and is supporting the Okla Hina Ikhish Holo (People of the Sacred Medicine Trail), a network of indigenous gardeners, as the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network Gulf South food and medicine sovereignty program manager. Monique is co-producer of the documentary My Louisiana Love and her work has been included in a variety of environmentally inspired projects, including the multi-platform performance Cry You One, Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas, and the collaborative book Return to Yakni Chitto: Houma Migrations.
EMAIL US AT NanihBvlbancha@gmail.com
Our Partners
New Orleans Recreation Department Commission
The New Orleans Recreation Department advances the physical, mental, and social well-being of New Orleanians by providing safe and welcoming environments for recreational, athletic, and cultural experiences.
Friends of the Lafitte Greenway
Friends of Lafitte Greenway (Friends) is the community-driven non-profit organization that works in partnership with the City and the community to ensure the Greenway develops into a safe, vibrant, and active park. The Lafitte Greenway is a 2.6-mile long linear park and multi-use trail in the heart of New Orleans. The Greenway features recreational facilities, fitness and cultural programming, open green space, and innovative stormwater management features. Managed by New Orleans Recreation Development Commission (NORD), the Greenway opened in 2015 after years of community driven support to turn a formerly abandoned railroad corridor into a public green space that connects an array of diverse New Orleans communities.
CAIRS Center for American Indian Research and Studies at USM
The Center for American Indian Research and Studies (CAIRS) facilitates partnerships between the faculty of Southern Miss and regional tribal governments in order to better serve the needs of the American Indian people in the Gulf South.
Neighborhood Story Project
The Neighborhood Story Project is a nonprofit collaborative ethnography organization in partnership with the Department of Anthropology & Sociology at the University of New Orleans. Since 2004, we have produced books, exhibits, events, and courses that share the complex stories of South Louisiana with each other and the world.
Bvlbancha Liberation Radio
Bvlbancha Liberation Radio is an Indigenous led, micro-grid communication and collective power building station based in Bvlbancha (New Orleans), providing Indigenous news, views, music and a community channel for environmental concerns in the greater Gulf South.
Bvlbancha Collective
Bvlbancha Collective is an Indigenous mutual aid collective working in and for Bvlbancha.
Bvlbancha Public Access
Bvlbancha Public Access is a media channel based around Bulbancha, Louisiana. We collect stories, facilitate art, and produce events on Indigenous identity in the Gulf South.
Coaltion to Restore Coastal Louisiana
The Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to unite people in action to achieve a thriving, sustainable Louisiana coast for all.
Houma Language Project
Since 2013, the Houma Language Project has worked to restore the indigenous Houma language through a collaboration between volunteers, tribes, tribal citizens, and linguists by archiving linguistic information, reconstructing the language and encouraging community use of the indigenous Houma language as a form of cultural expression.
SPROUT
Sprout supports established and developing small-scale and sustainable farmers, community gardeners, and farm workers in Louisiana with technical and social support to build a stronger, more equipped community of growers in Louisiana and help all New Orleanians be part of a community food system.
Womens Earth + Climate Action Network
The Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International is a solutions-based organization established to engage women worldwide in policy advocacy, on-the-ground projects, trainings, and movement building for global climate justice.
Prospect New Orleans
Prospect is a citywide contemporary art triennial and the first exhibition of its kind in the US with a decade-long history. Every three years, we bring new art to an old city by inviting artists from all over the world to create projects in a wide variety of venues spread throughout New Orleans.