Oakland Cemetery’s ‘Illumine’ shines brightly in its 18th year

Roaming through a cemetery at night might seem like a Halloween scare fest, but the historic Oakland Cemetery’s springtime art and light experience is the complete opposite. This year, Cat Eye Creative gallery co-curated the art walk.

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Oakland Cemetery is coming alive — with lights and color! This week, Atlanta’s oldest public green space kicked off its annual nocturnal art exhibition, Illumine. Running April 17 through April 20 and April 24 through April 27, Illumine allows fans of Oakland to roam sections of the Victorian burial ground and garden at night while also taking in some illuminated — of course — art installations by local and nationally renowned artists.

The theme for 2025 is What Remains, and it marks the first time Illumine has planned an art walk through the burial ground’s north corner. This section contains the iconic Oakland Bell Tower and opulent Richards Mausoleum, distinct contrasts to the CSX railroad tracks running just outside the graveyard walls which, on the railroad side, are well-known graffiti tagging territory. It’s a charming, less closely manicured stretch of grounds that also includes the graves of author Margaret Mitchell and Atlanta’s first Black mayor, Maynard Jackson.

Now in its 18th year, the program started as a daytime exhibition called Arts of Oakland. This temporary outdoor gallery experience was a way to highlight the graveyard’s Victorian architecture, gardens and history.

Over time, this evolved into a nighttime show that, literally, shines a light on the historic cemetery’s mausoleums and sculptures, transforming them into works of living color and light. In this ingenious way, the experience illuminates history and architecture with fresh art, digital projections and floral-inspired installations for the irises and other flowers that proliferate the burial grounds.

This year’s Illumine will be a little different. Not only will visitors be able to park and check in (and grab a drink or snack) at the brand-new Oakland Visitor Center, opened just two weeks ago, but this also marks the first time the cemetery, which was established in 1850, is collaborating with Atlanta-based gallery Cat Eye Creative to co-curate the art walk.

“It was a challenge not being in our own gallery space,”said Cat Eye Creative founder Adam Crawford. The gallery, which opened a second exhibit space last week in Decatur, brought in big local names for Illumine, such as illustrator FRKO, graffiti artist VAYNE and revered sculptor Kevin Chambers, who currently has work exhibited at the Smithsonian. “We had to find that boundary of what you can and can’t do and how to be respectful in a space that has a lot of history and dark history in some ways,” Crawford said. “How do you make it an exhibition space when it’s also a public park? Activating it with art brings new connotations to the cemetery and new life.”

Upon entering the graveyard at night, visitors follow a lighted path dotted with new temporary works. Perhaps most striking and immediately noticeable is the transformation of the Oakland Bell Tower. Multimedia artist Dr. Bojana Ginn has used flowing digital projections on all four sides of the tower, changing the structure into a pillar of electrified water resembling rippling arabesques and rosettes, evoking a rainy, spring energy.

A short walk from the tower sits Kevin Chambers’ Awaken, a classic figurative sculpture in a position — an emerging, vulnerable crouch — one would never expect to see in a cemetery. Visitors can twirl the piece in a circle by spinning the base, making it both playful and reflective of the transformative, springtime energy.

Other highlights include VAYNE’s cutting-edge work They’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone — he has blended the five block-shaped letters of his name into the landscape in the shape of old, leaning gravestones — and muralist Angie Jerez’s colorful and fanciful digital projection on the angel-statued tombstone of Mary Glover Thurman, aka the “Angel of Atlanta.”

Jerez’s projection entitled lo que permanece (What remains in Spanish) uses botanical designs and a kind of halo effect to reimagine, practically resurrect, the stoic angel statue sitting over Thurman’s final resting spot. (Did we mention there’s also a rainbow Slinky tree along the route?)

“We always knew that being in the cemetery after dark was something that people were interested in, and we love being able to share that with folks,” said Sandy White, Oakland Cemetery’s director of adult programs and volunteers — who manages Illumine. “My background is in museums and historic sites, and I love telling the stories of people. And what better place than Oakland where we have 70,000 residents?”

Oakland Cemetery’s Illumine is open April 17 through April 20 and April 24 through April 27 from 7:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. each night. Tickets are $20 in advance; $25 at the door. Children 6 to 17 and seniors are $15; children five and under get in free. VIP tickets run $85.

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Jeff Dingler is an Atlanta-based author and entertainer. A graduate of Skidmore College with an MFA in creative writing from Hollins University, he’s written for New York Magazine, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Tiny Love, Newsweek, WIRED, Salmagundi and Flash Fiction Magazine. More information at jeffdingler.org.