Atlanta seeks $1 million Bloomberg grant to host picnic arts festivals

The city of Atlanta wants to use a $1 million Bloomberg grant to create temporary art and “equitable picnic” events to gauge how the community can resolve disparities in health care access.

Bloomberg Philanthropies announced Wednesday that Atlanta is among 17 city finalists for its Public Art Challenge. According to the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs, the city wants to create large-scale art pieces, a mobile gallery and a festival across 50 locations. The festival locations will include hospitals, universities, and theaters, in partnership with the CDC Foundation, Out of Hand Theater and the National Black Arts Festival.

According to the mayor’s office, the city plans to advertise the events and showcase the artwork on MARTA buses. The picnics will highlight visual and performance-based art in discussions with community members and executives from the health care and public health sectors.

The mayor’s office says the dates of these proposed events have yet to be determined. If Atlanta gets the funds, the city would identify parks, hospitals and other sites where art installations could be housed.

“The goal of the project is to bring people together across lines of race as allies in creating a healthier Atlanta,” the mayor’s office of cultural affairs said in its grant application.

U.S. Census data shows Atlanta has the highest income inequality among large U.S. cities, and experts say it can be traced to entrenched racial disparities that took root in the city generations ago. According to the mayor’s office, African Americans make up half of the city’s residents, but 80% of its Black children live in high-poverty neighborhoods with little health care access, compared to 6% of white children.

Additionally, African American women are 50% more likely to die of breast cancer than white women in Atlanta, the broadest racial gap in breast cancer mortality rates of any U.S. city. Atlanta is also home to the nation’s highest death rate for Black men with prostate cancer.

“In an increasingly divided country, the challenge of addressing racism and health inequality can seem unsurmountable,” the mayor’s office of cultural affairs wrote.

“Through the arts, Atlantans can creatively raise awareness, share hopeful stories, institutional knowledge, and resources, and collectively brainstorm ideas that inspire real action and build strong partnerships across the socio-economic divides that perpetuate systematic racism in our city.”