Georgia-Cumberland Academy students’ artwork selected for exhibition in Hartsfield-Jackson Airport youth art galleries

Student work headed to one of Georgia’s highest-traffic public exhibition spaces

Artwork created by students at Georgia-Cumberland Academy, a co-ed boarding high school in Calhoun, is set to be displayed at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, placing student-created pieces in front of one of the largest daily audiences for public art in the state.

The display is part of the airport’s youth-focused exhibition program, which is built into the broader Airport Art Program operated through the City of Atlanta’s Department of Aviation. The Airport Art Program integrates art into the airport environment through permanent installations, rotating exhibitions and scheduled performances, positioning terminals and concourses as year-round cultural spaces for travelers and employees.

Where the work appears inside the airport

Hartsfield-Jackson’s youth art exhibitions are organized through designated Youth Art Galleries located in multiple areas of the airport, including Concourse T and the International Terminal’s Concourse E. The rotating youth galleries are structured to showcase K-12 student artwork from across Georgia, with exhibits changing on a scheduled basis during the year.

Separate youth art presentation areas also operate in other concourses, expanding the footprint of student work beyond a single corridor and distributing it across high-traffic passenger routes.

How student art is selected and displayed

The youth galleries are run in partnership with the Georgia Art Education Association, which administers participation requirements and coordinates exhibitions with the airport’s art infrastructure. Program materials indicate the galleries can display up to roughly 220 works at a time, allowing hundreds of students to be featured as exhibitions rotate.

In practice, selected student work is framed and installed in secure display cases or gallery-style wall systems within concourses—an approach designed for high-volume public spaces and the operational constraints of an active transportation hub.

• Exhibition format: rotating youth art displays installed within airport concourses
• Primary locations: Concourse T and Concourse E youth galleries
• Program structure: coordinated between the airport’s art initiative and statewide art-education partners

What the program represents for student artists

For student artists, an airport exhibition differs from a traditional school or museum setting in one key respect: scale of exposure. Hartsfield-Jackson is a major international gateway, and its art program is designed to make work visible to travelers moving through ticketing areas, concourse connectors and gate corridors.

Airport-based exhibitions are designed to function as public art encounters for passengers in transit, rather than destination-only gallery visits.

Context: a long-running public art framework at ATL

The airport’s art initiative traces its origins to the late 1970s, developing into a program that now includes both permanent works—installed in concourses and transportation corridors—and rotating shows that bring new exhibitions into the terminals on a regular schedule. Youth exhibitions operate within that same framework, aligning student work with the airport’s broader approach to curated, publicly accessible art.

Details on the number of student works selected from Georgia-Cumberland Academy, the concourse placement of those pieces, and the exhibition dates were not available in the initial announcement provided for this report.