Late one spring evening, I carefully navigated the jutting brick paths of Atlanta’s historic Oakland Cemetery. Above me, in the outstretched arms of a towering magnolia, five phoenixes blazed in the growing darkness. I tried to take a picture, but it didn’t do them justice, didn’t convey the way their three-foot wingspans seemed to encompass the whole city.
I had seen Dorothy O’Connor’s remarkable suspended bird installations at different parks and public spaces throughout the city, but this 2023 piece, Venture (flock of phoenix), stopped me in my tracks. Five firebirds constructed with over nine different types of wood veneer hovered overhead, lit from within and glowing through filigree cutouts. Their wings and tails had tree branch motifs that also evoked flames, lightning, and neurons. They had been created for illumine, Oakland’s after-hours celebration, and the scenic graveyard itself was an integral part of the artwork.
The Victorian-era cemetery is one of my favorite Atlanta landmarks and is, in many ways, a microcosm of the city’s complex history. Atlanta’s first Black mayor is buried a short walk from Confederate generals. The unnamed poor rest in the Potter’s Field a stone’s throw from opulent mausoleums. Named for its trees, Oakland Cemetery is a big-branched oasis. Its walls offer sanctuary—for the dead, for those seeking a moment’s quiet away from the din of endless traffic, and for a remarkable arboretum sheltered from the city’s breakneck development.
In her artist statement, O’Connor reflects on how trees not only bear witness to history and change but also become sources of nourishment and life even in their death. By constructing her phoenix flock from wood, she gestures toward the cyclical: an acceptance of the way the old must burn down to welcome the new.
Something about these birds captured an understanding of the city I’ve called home my whole life. Of course, the phoenix is emblematic of Atlanta; one rises from flames on the city’s seal, symbolizing its reconstruction from ashes after the Civil War. But O’Connor’s family of firebirds offered a more nuanced, authentic interpretation of the city’s spirit. In them, I inferred both grief for the injustices against life this place has seen and celebration for the more equitable future that can grow with the proper care. Atlanta is undoubtedly a place of contradiction, but it’s also a city of reinvention. And I like to think of that flock of wooden firebirds shining in the darkness, lighting the way forward.
Kimberly Coburn is an Atlanta-based writer and maker whose work explores the intersection between craft, the human spirit, and the natural world.
Learn more about the arts in Atlanta in The Scene: Craft in Atlanta.
Dorothy OʼConnorʼs Venture (flock of phoenix) illuminated at night.
