Woodruff Park Launches New Public Art Program

From Woodruff Park: On June 7, Downtown Atlanta’s Woodruff Park hosted an unveiling of a new public arts program, ArtSwap ATL.

Local artists Donna Howell (@70dot), Rory Hawkins (@catlanta), Kandus Johnson (@kandusjohnson), Ayanna Smith (@art.by.ayanna) of TILA Studios, and Evil Twin Brother (@eviltwinbrother) were invited to design the program’s five inaugural mailboxes, unveiled at the June 7 event. Each box encourages visitors to “take art and leave art.”

The program was imagined by local high school students, inspired by Atlanta's "Free Art Friday" movement and the nationwide “Little Free Library” movement, and implemented with the support of Spark Corps, the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District, and Southwest Airlines.

“It was wonderful to utilize the perspective of our target audience—local youth—to imagine a playful new element in the park that celebrates and directly engages with Atlanta’s creative community,” said Ansley Whipple, Woodruff Park Project Manager. In fall 2018, students from Cristo Rey Atlanta Jesuit High School, The New School, and Leap Year were invited to participate in workshops to co-design activations in the park intended to attract younger park users. These sessions resulted in a final pitch event in late 2018, where teams presented their designs to a panel of judges.

The judges selected a winning project idea, an arts scavenger hunt, which was then presented to marketing students in Georgia State University’s spring 2019 senior capstone class, who generated a marketing toolkit in support of ArtSwap ATL to be implemented by Woodruff Park this year.

Support for this unique project was made possible with a Heart of the Communitygrant from the Southwest Airlines Foundation, an advised fund of Silicon Valley Community Foundation, awarded to Woodruff Park in 2018. The community is invited to engage with the mailboxes by adding pieces of art for others to enjoy, as well as take home pieces by others that they discover in the boxes. More ArtSwap ATL events will be hosted in the park later this year. A photo library of the ArtSwap ATL lauch is available here.
For more information about Woodruff Park, visit www.WoodruffPark.com. Learn more about ArtSwap at AtlantaDowntown.com/ArtSwapATL.

Follow Woodruff Park online at Facebook.com/WoodruffPark and@WoodruffPark on Instagram.