In-person at the intersection of North Ponce de Leon and Ponce de Leon Avenue
Walk Starting point: 2189 N Ponce De Leon Ave
About This Event
Join @driftthemap for a nature walk through Olmsted Linear Park, Atlanta’s historic 45-acre pastoral park and old-growth forest meandering along Ponce de Leon Avenue. The park was designed in the 1890’s by legendary landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed New York’s Central Park. The park consists of six segments that are home to some of Atlanta’s oldest trees, and includes some of intown Atlanta’s most biodiverse urban stream and wildlife habitat. We will be joined by special guest Olmsted Linear Park Alliance executive director Sandra Kruger, along with a landscape architect and forest ecologist.
This walk is free. There is no need to register — Participants should simply meet at the tour departure point specified below.
The Details
This walk will depart 1 p.m. December 8 from Deepdene Park, outside 2189 N Ponce De Leon Ave (the east end of the park at the intersection of North Ponce de Leon and Ponce de Leon Avenue).
The walk will be a three hour, 3.6 mile round trip walk through Deepdene, Dellwood, Shadyside, Oak Grove, Virgllee, and Springdale Parks, and back again. This walk has low-to-moderate difficulty. The Deepdene portion will be on well-maintained trails and other parts will be sidewalk. Participants may call an Uber/Lift at the halfway point if desired.
A walking project led by artists @joelsilverman and ThreadATL's @atlurbanist Darin Givens, in partnership with Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA).
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Joel Silverman’s work focuses on excavating stories of community resistance for justice too-long denied. He creates counter-monuments that scrutinize the stories America tells about itself. Works are placed in cities as digital projections, annotating the built environment; or as interactive and immersive installations in museums. Silverman’s practice asks a viewer to assess their role in history and the part every person has to play in freedom for all. Silverman has spent his career at the forefront of the creation and conservation of digital artwork, and exploring new frontiers in interactive storytelling technology. He creates site-specific installations brought to life through motion-activated video projection and sound. Silverman’s work is intended as urban archaeology, recovering lost histories of our communities and drawing audiences to sites reverberating with ancestral memory—where the passage of time or intentional forgetting has blurred our vision of a shared humanity. It is artwork that is unfinished until a viewer becomes an active participant in reenacting pivotal moments of liberation and bearing witness to long-past spasms of violence. Having a background as a lawyer and political organizer steeped in democracy work informs his approach. This work takes the Civil Rights Movement’s dream of a “beloved community” as a starting point, in which a critical mass of people become committed to the philosophy and methods of nonviolence. Love and trust might yet triumph over fear and hate. Silverman is also a history museum curator and exhibition designer confronting human rights and social change through projected site-specific video projection, glass sculptures cast from geospatial data, artist-led city walks, and the use of video game engine tools as narrative forms. Silverman’s studio practice and curatorial projects synthesize disparate disciplines— art, the law, cartography, and critical theory --into a unified narrative of power, place, and advocacy for sustainable change.
My advocacy for Atlanta arts and culture began in 1997 when I successfully sued the City of Atlanta as an ACLU attorney to overturn Atlanta’s ordinance banning street artists and musicians from busking in public. Soon after, I was asked by Georgia Governor Roy Barnes to assist former Mayor Maynard Jackson and future Mayor Shirley Franklin in drafting an anti-sprawl strategy for the Atlanta region that incorporated city arts funding, environmental justice, and clean air goals into a regional transportation plan. I continued this advocacy once I quit the law at age 30 to become an installation artist and photographer. I have also taught since 2008 as adjunct faculty at Emory University, Georgia State University, and Agnes Scott College, offering college classes on photography, experimental printmaking, and filmmaking with a focus on social justice-minded artmaking, digital futurism, and photographic and cinematic art history. - Joel Silverman
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Darin Givens is a former journalist and freelance writer who posts about urbanism in Atlanta. He's the co-founder of an advocacy organization calledThreadATL.
Creative Loafing named Darin the Best Blogger in Atlanta in 2015 for ATL Urbanist, and he was included in Atlanta Magazine’s Best of Atlanta for 2013 for blogging.
PEDS, the non-profit for pedestrian advocacy in the Atlanta region, gave him a Golden Shoe Award in 2018 for “walk-friendly journalism.”
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This walk will depart 1 p.m. December 8 from Deepdene Park, outside 2189 N Ponce De Leon Ave (the east end of the park at the intersection of North Ponce de Leon and Ponce de Leon Avenue).
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Pictures and videos will be captured during MODA public programs and may be published on the official website, social media, and newsletters of the Museum of Design Atlanta. If you do not wish to appear on these platforms, please write to felicia@museumofdesign.org.
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This program is hosted by ThreadATL in partnership with Museum of Design Atlanta led by artist @joelsilverman Joel Silverman and @atlurbanist Darin Givens, advocating for smart urbanism in Atlanta.
For any questions about this program, please contact Joel Silverman at joel@silvermanphoto.com
MODA Contact:
Felicia E. Gail, MODA Public Programming & Membership Manager at felicia@museumofdesign.org