Atlanta: The Temple

Back in May I couchsurfed my first few days in Georgia with Dan Berry of the Savannah College of Art and Design. I hung out with him while I looked around for a more permanent place to stay for my two weeks there.

A couple days after I arrived I tagged along with him for a weekend with other SCAD students up in Atlanta. We drove up one Friday night, four of us in the car, listening to music, windows down, speeding along in the dark only stopping along the way to grab some much needed late night grub at a Steak 'n Shake. We arrived at his friend's house where several others were staying over as well, and so about a half dozen of us ended up sleeping on a fold out couch, some airbeds and a chair in the tightly packed living room.

The next morning we set off to get to work on art projects. The latter part of the day was spent in a place they call the Temple. It's this large abandoned factory near a railroad yard outside of the city which has had its insides pretty much covered with graffiti everywhere. With spray cans aplenty, they set up shop in one of the larger and more well lit rooms and began doing their thing, replacing old artwork with new.

I spent my time wandering around, figuring out the layout of the place. It's an immense building, and graffiti artists have painted pretty much every corner, to a more or less extent. Most of it was brightly lit from the sun through broken windows high up on the walls or gaping holes where doors and panes of glass used to be, but there were lots of dark, dank places as well, with sagging ceilings that have been collecting rainwater for some time. I tried to figure out what it was they made at this factory exactly but it was anyone's guess, really.

This is just the entryway. There's way more around the back

The poster in the back says "Please keep this area CLEAN"

Natural light gradually making its way back into this place

While I was running around, Dan was drawing a trollface. He recently discovered the site reddit, and he pretty quickly fell in love with rage comics and started making his own. So he decided to practice his art by trolling previous artists, spray painting a trollface over their tags. At one point he called me over and had me shoot a video with his iPad while he did some finishing touches. Notice my expert steady holding of the camera in the second part of the video.

As the sun was setting we packed up our things and headed out. With no electricity or lights I would imagine the Temple is an eerie place to be in the night time, even more so than in the day time. If I pass through Atlanta again I'll stop by, and see what the artists of Georgia have been doing in their spare time.