Urban Intervention: The Beltline
January 10- March 6, 2008
Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design Gallery
Georgia State University
Atlanta
Access
Joan Tysinger
The Wheelchair Diaries
Tysinger’s Wheelchair Diaries project was a video installation that drew from an ongoing visual record of the freedom and the challenges the artist faced as she navigated from one place to another, the different perspectives she gained by moving through the city in a seated position, and her surprising discoveries along the way.
Part of the Atlanta Beltline Plan, the Beltline Trail is expected to be realized during the initial stages of Beltline project. Once the trail is complete, it will theoretically be possible for her to navigate the entire beltway by wheelchair. “Doing” the whole trail was her ultimate goal. A video chapter of Wheelchair Diaries will document her wheelchair experience along official pathways and parks within the proposed Beltline Trail.
Tysinger’s project documented her wheelchair navigation along three sections of the Beltline Trail. Areas of interest are the Inman Park – Carter Center area pathway, the Path bike trail which runs along Krog Street through the underpass connecting with Wylie Street and Cabbage Town, and the trail from Tanyard Creek through Bobby Jones Golf Course to Peachtree Creek and then to Lindbergh Station.
Advocacy
www.dirtytruth.org
Neighborhood Planning Unit V, with Brian Hawkins and Lisa Tuttle
Project Coordinator: Margaret Hooker
While many in Atlanta are looking forward to the utopian promise of the Beltline, the neighborhoods of NPU-V have ample cause to be cautious about the ways in which their lives and communities will be impacted by “redevelopment.” The six neighborhoods of NPU-V (Adair Park, Capitol Homes/Gateway, Mechanicsville, Peoplestown, Pittsburgh and Summerhill) have a long and complicated history vis-à-vis Atlanta’s growth and the related issues of transportation, housing, development-induced displacement and gentrification.
Project collaborators presented an excerpt of the Photovoice project undertaken by twenty (current and displaced) residents of Neighborhood Planning Unit V. Through select photographs and video documentation, the installation raised the continuing debate around the effects of massive “redevelopment” projects, including the Beltline, while giving voice to its most vulnerable and marginalized citizens.
Community
www.youtube.com/DomainV
Ryan Gravel and Danielle Roney
Domain
Ryan Gravel and Danielle Roney planned a series of public interventions examining the unique community development of public domain in neighborhoods surrounding the Beltline transportation redevelopment project in Atlanta.
Responding to the built environment and locational identity, they used the organic process of interventions. This process utilized video projection, found object sculptural artifacts, and performance in temporal projects and events. Relational aesthetics allowed these interactive experiences to incorporate community involvement in creative scenes while examining how the plan for progress will impact several unique neighborhoods and their socio-economic status.
Site-specific interventions were developed throughout the fall of 2007 and documented with video and photography was presented at the Georgia State gallery. Sculpture and physical works incorporated into the digital response were displayed in the gallery lobby.
Greenspace
www.ecoaddendum.org
Pandra Williams
Return of the Native Garden
Hurt Park, along Gilmer Street between Courtland Ave. and Peachtree Center Ave.
Acknowledging that we cannot reconstruct the entire ecosystem that was once in the area of the Beltline, Return of the Native Garden engaged in reverse archeology with Hurt Park as the proposed research site.
An area within the park tested the hypothesis that abandoned brownfields surrounding warehouses on the Beltline can be revitalized with a native succession garden. The placement of reclaimed materials like brick and granite in key viewing locations acknowledgeed Atlanta's industrial past. These materials were collected from sites adjacent to the Beltline. The design and plant media built upon the idea of growth and change over time.
This project began to grow beginning Fall 2007 and was celebrated on March 24, with the Spring Solstice in the Native Garden event.
Photos of the Beltline
www.photosofthebeltline.org
with Ruth Dusseault
Photos of the Beltline (www.photosofthebeltline.org) is an on going web-based exhibition designed to describe the fragmented 22-mile corridor that will become the Atlanta Beltline. All college-level photography instructors and students throughout the city are invited to participate and post their images to be viewed by the general public. Using the website, photography instructors can “reserve” a mile of the Beltline for a class project and students can upload their photos and pin point them onto an interactive exhibition map. By photographing the Beltline, it is possible to reveal hidden aesthetic, historic, environmental and social values. It is possible for the Beltline to become a new type of development that reflects the identity and typography of the city and the region. Ruth Dusseault, Artist in Residence, at Georgia Tech’s College of Architecture, created Photos of the Beltline; where the site is hosted and will be archived annually. The official launch is December 2007.
IMAGO: the last stage
Sustaining place and perspective along the Belt Line
Ed Akins II with David Green
Imago is a term used by Carl Jung to describe the way that people form their personality (image) by identifying with the collective unconscious. Imago also refers to the final adult, and usually winged, state of an insect; the last stage of development.
We held an image of the final development of the Beltline. However, our individual ideas may or may not have corresponded to a collective vision that was forming around this plan. The cicada, a summer insect, has often been used as a symbol of nonchalance or indifference. As we begin to inhabit this land, will we become indifferent to what is being replaced?
For true integration to occur, the Beltline plans must become equally responsive and adaptable to pre-existing systems (ecological and man-made). There is an inherited and emergent relationship between the act of creation and the reaction of the place upon which it is applied.
This installation acted as a metaphor for the intersection of our intentions upon the earth and the earth’s response. As we attempt to resolve the conflict between mechanized solutions and organic systems and synthesize the moment between idea and application perhaps a viewer might find their place within the cacophony.
Willa's Wonderland
www.loomstudio.com/willas_wonderland
Through the Belt Loops
Amy Landesberg and Ralph Nelson
A humanist model for the Atlanta Beltline envisions more than a belt that girdles the city. It must include supportive connections to neighborhoods along the way and a pathway filled with wonder. Institutions provide substantial support and inspiration to city inhabitants, in concert with dwelling and infrastructure. It is these Institutional Belt Loops that formed the nexus of our reconstruction, encircling ten stops on the Beltline to invigorate strategic communities.
As a visionary collaborative model, we have constructed an idealized world in the representational form of a comic book. We were motivated to select a form of communication that would provide a platform for a writer, two artists and a gaggle of architects. We were able to work together by carrying forward our individual strengths to form a new synthetic vision. Though we are also aware of the comic nature of all idealized vision, this did not prevent us from joyful and serious forward progress.
The lead character in our narrative is Willa, a precocious eleven-year old. Through her journey around the Beltline she comes to understand the vital importance of building a dream with vision and wisdom. Her travel includes both progress and pause, led by the characters and places she encounters along the way. Her observation of noble Institutions should guide us in projecting a new and nurturing future for Atlanta. In 2039, Willa will become Mayor of the City and her childhood experience will shape her leadership.
Thinking of our comic book as a model for reality, we know every community needs a vehicle that joins and carries many voices, many visions and many hands. These must be carried forth with human perspective in the context of actual human experience. Large projects are often developed in cities where rational economic and executive force usurps human comfort, practicality and beauty. Bird’s-eye planning rarely addresses human perspective from the street. Every city has need for humane stories, woven into the fabric of daily life and the places that nurture and inspire. A child’s perspective is often the most honest, pure and accurate.
Project TeamDan Clark, architect
John Grider, artist
Evan Hall, architect
Julia Klatt Singer, writer
Amy Landesberg, artist and architect
Ralph Nelson, architect
Brett Olds, architect
Bryan Peter, architect
Krista Toperzer, architect
Noel Turgeon, architect
Don Vu, architect, graphic designer
BIKE FORUM at Piedmont Park
SOAP BOX in Old Fourth Ward
LABOR YARD at Hulsey
CIRCUS POLITICUS at Boulevard Crossing
STAR PARK at Highpoint
BOTANICAL ARCADE at Murphy Triangle
MIND GARDEN at Mozley Park
SOUND FIELD at Washington Park
WATERING HOLE at Bellwood Quarry
CINEMA PARADISE at Colonial Park