Oakland Cemetery’s Upcoming “illumine” Arts Event Featured on WABE’s “City Lights”
Historic Oakland Foundation Director of Adult Programs & Volunteers Sandy White (left) and Cat Eye Creative Founder Adam Crawford (Right)
illumine, Oakland Cemetery’s major spring arts event, is just around the corner, and it promises to be more magical than ever.
Historic Oakland Foundation’s Director of Adult Programs Sandy White and Cat Eye Creative Founder Adam Crawford recently joined Summer Evans on WABE’s City Lights to share the vision behind this year’s event and offer a glimpse into what attendees can expect.
Sandy White reflected on the cemetery as an unconventional but inspiring art space. “illumine is such a great way to experience Oakland Cemetery from a totally different perspective than you would at any other time,” she said. “Oakland Cemetery is a city of Atlanta park—we welcome people from dawn to dusk every single day, free of charge. But we also see it as a unique canvas to explore different themes of Atlanta life. We have so many amazing residents that are buried there, so many stories to tell, but also so much incredible funerary art.”
Not only is this year’s illumine different from past years due to the partnership with Cat Eye Creative, it will also incorporate the brand-new Visitor Center, where attendees can meet and enjoy video projections as part of the experience.
In reference to this year’s theme “What Remains”, Sandy White stated “What Remains is both a statement and a question. It’s a statement that what remains in the cemetery is what we see. We have monuments and obelisks and memorials, brick pathways and walls, long-standing trees and plantings—things that have been around hundreds of years. But it’s also a question of what does remain and what could remain.”
Artist Adam Crawford, whose Cat Eye Creative gallery, founded in 2019, has recently expanded into a second Decatur studio, spoke about the intentional artist selection process.
“It was a really exciting process to dig through our roster of artists. Most of our artists had had experiences with the cemetery, either growing up here or coming to town and being struck by its beauty.”
This year’s artist lineup features a dynamic group, including Vanna Black, Kevin Chambers, FRKO, Bojana Ginn, Navin June Norling, Angie Jerez, and VAYNE. “We have a graffiti writer, a bronze sculptor, an installation artist, a muralist, someone who works in the gallery space. We have a wide range of artists, and the work they’re doing speaks to their own practice and the site-specific installation at Oakland,” Crawford shared.
What can attendees expect from the event?
“You get shadows and light, and it creates a magical experience. We welcome people in to literally see the cemetery in a different light,” said Sandy White. The art isn’t the only thing to look forward to—live performances from Moody Hollow, OkCello, and Bonaventure Quartet will add to the evening’s atmosphere. As Crawford teased, “Expect projections at night, expect cutouts, expect big sculptural elements. Some things might look like they fit in and some things might be wildly out of place.”
