The City of Atlanta is one of only eight cities nationwide to receive a grant of up to $1 million from the Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge, an initiative that supports temporary public art addressing urgent civic concerns. According to Bloomberg Philanthropies, 150 cities applied.
Stephanie Dockery, program officer and manager of the Public Art Challenge, says the cities were selected for their creativity and commitment to serving their communities.
Atlanta’s project, titled “Thriving Together,” will look at racial inequities in public health, says Camille Russell Love, executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs. The Mayor’s Office is partnering with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Foundation, Out of Hand Theater and the National Black Arts Festival to develop and execute the two-year project.
According to Russell Love, the project will use Out of Hand’s equitable dinners as a model, presenting performances with the theme of health inequity, followed by a meal — breakfast, lunch or dinner — that will encourage communal conversation about the topic.
The National Black Arts Festival will create a mobile art gallery curated through the same lens. The CDC Foundation will be responsible for “financial and donor management, partnership coordination, program evaluation, procurement and supporting communications,” according to Amy Tolchinsky, the Foundation’s communications director.
The partners are in the process of developing the lineup of events, Russell Love says. No artists have been selected yet: “We didn’t want to get ahead of ourselves or count our chickens before they hatched.”
The initiative will officially kick off on March 1, 2024, at the Atlanta History Center as part of the Night of Ideas, an event coordinated by the Institut Français and co-produced by Villa Albertine and the French Embassy.
The end of the project will be celebrated with an event in Piedmont Park in 2025. The city’s annual ELEVATE festival, usually held in October, also will be programmed in 2025 to reflect the theme.
It’s anticipated that the “Thriving Together” events will take place in parks, schools and universities, hospitals, faith communities and many other locations. Community members and executives from Atlanta’s health care and public health sectors will participate.
The city is in discussions with MARTA about promoting the events and showcasing relevant artworks on buses.
“We are looking for a lot of partners and sponsorships,” Russell Love says. “A million dollars is a lot of money, but not when you think of activating events over two years. We want to engage with food service organizations, for instance, and we are actively looking for organizations to host the dinners.”
This is the third time the city of Atlanta has applied for the Public Art Challenge. The previous applications, in 2015 and 2018, didn’t make the cut. “Third time is the charm,” says Russell Love. “We are very excited.”
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Gillian Anne Renault has been an ArtsATL contributor since 2012 and Senior Editor for Art+Design and Dance since 2021. She has covered dance for the Los Angeles Daily News, Herald Examiner and Ballet News and on radio stations such as KCRW, the NPR affiliate in Santa Monica, California. Many years ago, she was awarded an NEA Fellowship to attend American Dance Festival’s Dance Criticism program.
