On Thursday, Oct. 24, Atlanta Contemporary welcomed visitors to its newest anchor exhibits: WE KEEP US SAFE, A Sorcery of Sustenance, and Donald Locke: Nexus. “We have three major gallery experiences, so having new works in these spaces at the same time allows us to maximize our ability to present a range of artistic work while attracting a diverse audience,” said Floyd Hall, curator of the A Sorcery of Sustenance and executive director of The Atlanta Contemporary Gallery. A Sorcery of Sustenance by Masud Olufani, delves into the cultural retentions of the African diaspora through food. Tatiana Bell’s WE KEEP US SAFE captures collective grief and resistance, while Donald Locke: Nexus highlights the artist’s exploration of his journey from Guyana to the United States.Photo by Noah Washington/The Atlanta VoiceA Sorcery of Sustenance: Food as Cultural MemoryMasud Olufani’s exhibit, A Sorcery of Sustenance, highlights the connection between food and memory. Olufani who uses sculptures made from traditional African American food sources such as rice, yams, and black-eyed peas, Olufani spoke to The Atlanta Voice and explained the central idea behind his work “Eating, consuming food is not just a rote exercise. There’s a whole other level to food consumption that involves memory, cultural retention, history, and meaning.”The inspiration for A Sorcery of Sustenance came from Olufani’s travels to West Africa. In 2022, after receiving the results of his ancestry test, which traced his lineage to the Mende people of Sierra Leone, Olufani decided to visit the continent. “I went back to Sierra Leone two years ago to connect with my ancestors,” he said, “ I also visited Ghana while I was there. I was just very observant, watching how people process food, the foods that we were eating, going into villages, watching how people climbed trees and tapped for palm oil.” His observations led him to recognize deep connections between the foods of West Africa and those eaten by African Americans today, particularly in the Black community.For Olufani, food consumption is a form of magic—“a sorcery,” as he calls it—because when we eat, we consume not just nutrients but also a culture’s history and identity. “If I’m taking in food from another culture, I’m consuming part of their history, part of their memory,” he elaborated. Photo by Noah Washington/The Atlanta VoiceWE KEEP US SAFE: Honoring Collective GriefTatiana Bell’s exhibit, WE KEEP US SAFE, similarly explores memory but through the lens of collective grief. Bell’s –  inspired by the Defend the Forest movement cited “the murder of Tortuguita,” an Indigenous queer and non-binary environmental activist and forest defender, “I was feeling really lost in terms of how I could show up for the movement and my community,” Bell explained. This sense of loss and the desire to create a space for collective healing drove her to begin working in a greenhouse at South River Art Studios, located in Southeast Atlanta.The installation paying homage to the grief of people from various movements, with contributions from those involved in the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as those advocating for justice in Palestine and for environmental causes. “It was a journey of finding a place that felt safe,” Bell said. The exhibit’s video piece features voices from protests, notes read aloud by friends, and the voice of Tortuguitas’ mother, who attended one of Bell’s grief gatherings on the anniversary of her child’s death. “We keep our stories alive by word of mouth and feeling solidarity in whatever grief we’re feeling,” Bell emphasized.For Bell, the exhibit is not only a reflection of political movements but also a space for personal grief. “It doesn’t have to be as big as a movement. It’s also a lot of personal grief, and it’s about really honoring the importance of grieving,” she said. Her hope is that visitors to the exhibit will leave with a deeper understanding of the power of memory and the need to honor both individual and collective losses.Donald Locke: Nexus.Donald Locke: Nexus, a tribute to the late Donald Locke, a Guyanese artist whose influence spanned continents and decades. Curated by Grace Aneiza Ali, Nexus not only showcases Locke’s work but also marks a return to the very studio space where his journey in Atlanta began more than 30 years ago. Grace Aneiza Ali, a fellow Guyanese, curated the exhibit with a personal connection. “As a curator, it’s always a blessing to be able to work on an artist from the place you’re from,” she explained. Ali had worked with Locke’s art before, but Nexus holds a special significance. “He was one of the first 12 artists in 1992 to move into the Nexus studios [at Atlanta Contemporary],” Ali recounted. “Thirty years later, we’re literally back on hallowed ground. And the work that you see in the room is the work that he made while he was literally in the studio down the hall.”Locke’s journey is that of the transnational artist experience, having migrated from Guyana to the United Kingdom and eventually to the United States. His work—rooted in these cross-cultural experiences—explores themes of identity, memory, and the intersection of personal and cultural histories. Ali’s curatorial process, steeped in their shared heritage, sought to honor not only Locke’s artistic legacy but also the rich Guyanese community from which he hailed.Locke’s art challenges traditional categories, merging the boundaries between painting and sculpture. His ability to infuse structure with deep symbolic meaning is a recurring theme in his work. Ali emphasized this, saying, “Donald was such an incredible master of form. He would treat the back of his paintings as equally important as the front. He constructed the structures to hold his paintings, and then he would coat them with all of these things that you’re not necessarily meant to understand what they are. But he was pushing the boundaries between: Is it painting or is it sculpture? Is it sculpture or is it architecture?”As visitors walk through the exhibit, they encounter 15 paintings and 4 sculptures.  The structures Locke created defy easy classification. His experimental techniques were designed to provoke thought and conversation, and Nexus does exactly that. “Donald’s work wasn’t meant to fit into neat categories,” Ali explained. “He wanted to challenge our perceptions of what art could be, and he succeeded in doing that.”One of Ali’s favorite pieces in the exhibit isn’t a painting or a sculpture, but a photograph of Locke himself. “This is him literally standing in his studio down the hall,” she said, pointing to the image. “I love this photo of him. It brings everything together.” The photograph, enlarged to a scale, captures Locke in a moment of creation—bringing viewers back to the origins of his artistic practice at Atlanta Contemporary.The three anchor exhibits will be on display till Feb. 2, 2025.The post Art, Grief, and Community: New Exhibitions Open at Atlanta Contemporary appeared first on The Atlanta Voice.