Spanning roughly thirteen miles of the 22-mile corridor on the west, south, and east sides of Atlanta, Art on the Atlanta BeltLine is one of the largest, temporary public art exhibitions in the country.
This linear outdoor gallery allows over 2.2 million people annually to see artists at every level in their careers from across Atlanta, the nation, and the world and in a variety of mediums: sculpture, murals, dance, music, theater, photography, fashion, film, and more.
Since her appointment in 2017, Kyle has restructured ABI’s Public Art Program to increase equitable artist awards and mitigate racial bias in jury practices, managed an National Endowment for the Arts Our Town grant to create and implement an Arts and Culture Strategic Implementation Plan, implemented the BeltLine Public Arts Advisory Council, and overseen the commissioning of hundreds of art activations along the corridor.
She supervised a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, making her department the first of its kind to be awarded both and NEA and NEH grant. She supports ABI’s department of Design and Construction to incorporate art into park and trail design, engage developers to consider public art in their construction, and advise on secondary design elements like benches and future transit stops.
Additionally, Kyle works on interdepartmental collaborations with ABI’s Community Engagement and Planning by managing relationships with outside arts organizations, institutions, and developers. She ensures the local creative community is integrated into the public art programs with activations like Family Paint Day (where families come out and paint a mural), and the Special Projects platform (community driven exhibitions on the BeltLine).
In addition to the annual curation of AoAB, Kyle created Atlanta’s first Public Art Residency Program. The Atlanta BeltLine Residency Program is designed to offer real-world exposure operating within the realm of public art and infrastructure.
Unlike collegiate or gallery residencies that operate within the structure and stricture of those prescribed spaces and audiences, the public realm presents many unique challenges including, but not limited to: responsibilities to multiple audiences simultaneously, community place-keeping and empowerment, space and environment, and the many components of the civic system including permitting, ordinances, and governmental offices. With 3 year long Residency opportunities (Artist, Curator, and Scholar), the program specifically seeks to collaborate with Black, Brown, and Indigenous creatives.
2020 was a pivotal year for public art across the country, and Kyle worked with local communities to provide access, resources and space for art creation, protests, and memorials along the Atlanta BeltLine. Unlike other venues, she was able to continue to support performance artists by utilizing the BeltLine’s open spaces in conjunction with digital platforms to continue to fund the hardest hit creative community.
Kyle holds an MFA in Sculpture from the Savannah College of Art and Design, and a Post Graduate Degree in Painting and Drawing from the Edinburgh College of Arts. She was awarded the 2013 Lee Kimche McGrath Fellowship for Arts & Sciences for her research in utilizing 3D printing technologies within traditional foundry practices, in 2014 she was awarded the StarSeed Fellowship to research the intersection of Public Art, Performance and Space in Riga and Pedvale, Latvia, and in 2017 won a coveted curatorial residency with Hambidge Art Center.
She currently serves on the Americans for the Arts Public Art Network Advisory Council, and has curated exhibitions locally and internationally over the last ten years, ranging in disciplines from performance to public art. She is passionate about the preservation of Atlanta’s graffiti culture, and the intersection of Indigenous land rights, sovereignty, and monuments. When not consumed by everything BeltLine art, she is working to dismantle racist monuments with Stone Mountain Action Coalition and Toppled Monument Archive.