Before the first whistle blows at any World Cup match, Atlanta is making clear to the world that the city’s culture is the main event, and that programming will follow the tournament’s rhythm, with cultural activations scheduled for the day before each of Atlanta’s matches at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
The Atlanta Cultural Exchange opened Sunday at The Center (CTR) Atlanta on Marietta Street, transforming 23,500 square feet of blank eighth-floor space into an immersive showcase of the city’s art, fashion, music, and creative community. The experience, presented by Showcase Atlanta and powered by The Gathering Spot, will run June 14 through July 14, with activations scheduled the day before each of Atlanta’s World Cup matches.
Mayor Andre Dickens, addressing an opening-day crowd, credited a broad team of collaborators for bringing the vision to life, while acknowledging the attendance of former Mayor Shirley Franklin, who was set to join Royce Bable of Sweet Auburn Stories and Deante Kyle, host of the Grits and Eggs Podcast, for a panel examining Atlanta’s journey from a center of civil rights leadership to a global hub for culture, business, sports and innovation.
“I feel great to have my predecessors be able to see this work and contribute to it,” Dickens said, noting Franklin’s role in helping make Atlanta’s 1996 Centennial Olympic Games a success.
Dickens framed the exchange as more than a cultural showcase, urging Atlantans to engage with their own city as a destination. “We want you to be a tourist in your own city,” he said. “Don’t get out-toured by somebody that’s from another country.”
Adriane V. Jefferson, director of the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs, said the space was deliberately curated to reflect the full breadth of Atlanta’s creative community. The exchange features works from local galleries, including Zucot Gallery, Buckhead Art Gallery, and ABV by Greg Mike, alongside international contributions from artists in Mexico, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia.
“Atlanta deserves to be on the world stage, because there’s so much that the world has taken, has emulated that has come from Atlanta,” Jefferson said. “I hope that the world sees that a lot of the things they love was birthed here.”
Jefferson described the undertaking of transforming the space as massive. “This was a white box, a blank space with nothing in it,” she said. The 23,500-square-foot floor is now home to art installations, a music lounge with DJ activations, fashion displays, and daily programming including panel discussions, live performances, and a gaming lounge.
Producer Angela Watts, who led the creative effort as The Culture Exchange executive producer, said the exchange fulfills a longtime vision. “I am so thankful for Mayor Andre Dickens, Office of Cultural Affairs, the City of Atlanta, for giving my team and me an opportunity to create and curate over 100 artists in one space,” Watts said. “It’s something that I have dreamed up for a very long time, where you have the convergence of fashion, art, music, and entertainment all under one particular roof.”
Among the vendors and artists filling the floor on opening day was Brandon Franklin, a custom headwear designer and founder of a hat shop he describes as one of the only full-service operations in the city. Franklin said he brought a new collection to debut at the exchange, incorporating country flags and colors from World Cup-qualifying nations, including Colombia and other South American countries. All pieces, he noted, are American-made.
“My business speaks to the culture of Atlanta because we are original,” Franklin said. “All of my pieces are original. We are trailblazers, and that’s what I do as a business.”
Tribal Eyes Eyewear founder Dr. Ona Utumama, a hospital medicine physician who launched the brand in 2020, described her company as filling a gap in the market for eyewear designed around diverse facial features. At the exchange, she positioned the brand within Atlanta’s global moment.
“We are Atlanta’s Global Citizen Highway,” Utumama said. “The typical Tribal Eyes eyewear customer is someone who wants to see the world and takes our eyewear to these places. They’re not afraid of color, they’re not afraid of style, and they want the world to see them and their culture through their eyes.”
Anderson Smith, founder of the Anderson Smith Gallery, curated a collection of Black art for the exchange that draws on both Atlanta-based and international artists, including a South African painter and works by D.L Warfield, known for album artwork with LaFace Records artists including OutKast, Usher, and T.I. Smith also displayed pieces from a newer artist depicting Abraham Lincoln alongside one of his own works.
“I just wanted to make sure that I represented the gallery’s perspective, as far as what we do as artists,” Smith said. “I wanted to have a great cohesion of Black art.”
Day one programming also included a set by DJ Kickz, a performance art session with Latryce Marie, a Soul Food Cypher hip-hop performance, a DJ battle pitting old-school tastemakers against newer selectors, and a closing performance from music executive and choreographer Devyne Stephens.
Filmmaker Christian Nolan Jones screened “A Night on the East Side,” a compilation of five years of work, as part of a session presented by On Set ATL. Jones, currently working on a new project named “Kinfolk,” said events like the World Cup offer something beyond soccer.
“I think the more time that we get to see the specificity of different communities, then people also get to see that we’re not that different from each other,” Jones said. “Things like the World Cup are dope, because you get to bring people from all different places, and we get to see the humanity in each other.”
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