When Culture Becomes Cure: Inside Atlanta’s ELEVATE 2025 Festival

Atlanta has always had a pulse you can feel before you see it. It hums through the murals on Edgewood, the basslines from passing cars on Peachtree, the way a barber’s laugh spills out of a shop and becomes part of the soundtrack of the city. Ours is a rhythm that refuses to fade. It bends, it reinvents, it rises.

This October, that rhythm becomes medicine. ELEVATE 2025: Rooted & Rising returns October 10–12 with a three-day public art festival that transforms Atlanta into a living gallery—an immersive celebration of the city’s creative DNA. Stretching across the West End, Sweet Auburn, Castleberry Hill, and South Downtown, the festival reframes culture itself as a form of healing, reminding us that preservation and wellness are deeply connected.

“Rooted & Rising is both a love letter and a call to action,” says Adriane V. Jefferson, Director of the Department of Cultural Affairs. “We honor the roots that raised us while uplifting the next generation of cultural caretakers. This festival asks us to remember, reclaim, and reimagine—together.”

This year’s theme pays homage to Atlanta between the late 1980s and early 2000s—those golden years when hip-hop, hair salons, and hustle collided. It was the age of Freaknik and fashion on the block, of sound systems in the park and skaters under the bridge. Before the city was a global brand, it was a feeling—a creative language born of rhythm, resilience, and relentless reinvention. Rooted & Rising reclaims that language, celebrating the stylists, storytellers, musicians, and dreamers who built Atlanta’s cultural foundation while daring the next generation to build upon it.

The festival opens Friday, October 10, with Steele Fresh: Rooted in Style, Rising in Sound, curated by visual artist and CBROOKS Gallery founder Courtney Brooks. A fusion of music, spoken word, dance, and fashion, Steele Fresh is both affirmation and celebration—a live marketplace where creativity becomes connection and Atlanta’s style rises as art. On Saturday, photographer and storyteller Melissa Alexander, known to many as Phyllis Iller, curates The Culture Comb Out, reclaiming Underground Atlanta as a space for wellness, play, and nostalgia. The morning begins with community stretch and affirmation at Woodruff Park, then unfolds into wellness sessions, games, art installations, and a gallery stroll along Artist’s Row—a throwback and a glow-up all at once.

The weekend concludes Sunday, October 12, with Welcome to the West Side, curated by SLW & Steady Productions founders Stephen Wilkins and Jordan Neal of Plasma Magazine. Centered in the Westview community, the closing day features live performances, workshops, and a maker’s market before culminating at the Pearl Cleage & Zaron Burnett Center for Culture and Creativity with a documentary screening and community conversation.

What makes ELEVATE different is its heart. This isn’t art for observation—it’s art for transformation. It’s murals that breathe life into old buildings, food that tells our stories, and beats that turn pain into power. In a time when conversations about wellness often orbit privilege, Rooted & Rising reclaims creativity as the people’s medicine. It’s a reminder that joy, rhythm, and storytelling are Atlanta’s oldest healing practices—and still our most effective ones.

Founded in 2011 by the City of Atlanta’s Department of Cultural Affairs, ELEVATE reimagined what a public art festival could be. Rather than limiting art to galleries, it transforms the city itself into a canvas, integrating music, dance, and visual storytelling into everyday spaces. The festival has been featured in more than 250 national and local publications and was named one of the Top 50 Public Art Projects in America by the Americans for the Arts Public Art Network. But its greatest achievement isn’t in awards or attendance—it’s in the murals that stay long after the music fades, the neighborhoods revived through creativity, and the belief that Atlanta’s culture isn’t just entertainment—it’s survival.

This October, ELEVATE 2025: Rooted & Rising invites Atlanta to remember that culture has always been our cure. The art is our heartbeat. The rhythm is our remedy. And through every note, every mural, and every shared story, the city continues to prove that Atlanta’s culture isn’t just alive—it’s healing.