Elevate Atlanta: Art in the Park

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Hosted seasonally in downtown Atlanta by the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs, ELEVATE is a temporary public art program that seeks to activate the downtown Atlanta area through visual art, performances, and cultural events. The focus of ELEVATE is to enhance the cultural offerings in downtown Atlanta, and highlight what makes Atlanta unique. The program looks to provide free, quality cultural experiences with the desired outcome of increasing cultural and economic vitality. ELEVATE is a unique temporary art experience for artists and the general public. This summer marked the star of year-round ELEVATE programming. Each year in October the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs will present the ELEVATE public art festival where a “theme” will be selected by a curator(s). The festival like the three other events during the year, will feature local, national and/or international art and artists strategically presented to capture the interest and imagination of viewers, while providing an entirely new and accessible experience for downtown Atlanta.

Since its inaugural year in 2011, nearly 250 articles have been published regarding the new cultural vitality of the downtown area. The project has successfully ignited conversations regarding the area as a cultural district in City Planning and Urban Design Departments as well as the City Council and Community. Adding to this ephemeral downtown vitality, many of the temporary projects created through the festival still exist today in their site-specific areas (most notably the downtown South Broad and Underground Atlanta murals- See ELEVATE 2012’s page). ELEVATE was placed in the top 50 public art projects in the Nation through Americans for the Arts Public Art Network, as well as the top 10 projects for City Livability.

excerpt taken from: http://www.ocaatlanta.com/?programs=elevate

Variation B--

On Process:

"I find the process that it takes to get to the end the most interesting. It is here where the bulk of the exploratory work occurs, so this is the point where I will be the most transparent. Not everything worked, but some things did."