The inaugural Buford Highway Arts Festival amplifies the voices of those who live there

When Marco Ferral Hernandez was growing up along Buford Highway, he struggled to find opportunities to foster his love of art. He enjoyed reading and writing poetry, but discovered a love for music when he started sixth grade after hearing his teacher play the Super Mario theme song on the flute.

After years of learning the saxophone and teaching himself guitar, he majored in music composition in college.

Now that he’s graduated and has returned to Atlanta, he’s amazed to see how the artistic community on Buford Highway has grown.

“I wanted to be able to be the person that I wish I could have had when I was younger,” he said on a recent day at Dresden Park in Chamblee.

With the help of co-organizer Tim Rhodes, he’ll realize the beginning of that dream with the inaugural Buford Highway Arts Festival Saturday.

The event will feature art by students and artists from around Buford Highway displayed at the Chinatown Mall. In addition to a visual art showcase, festival highlights will include spoken word poetry, a presentation from the Asian Student Alliance, three short film screenings and tabling from nearby organizations.

Hernandez is most looking forward to attendees simply listening to the stories of the people who make up the Buford Highway community. Too often, the historic area is simplified as just a place to find good food, he said.

“It’s seeing beyond just like, ‘Oh, Buford Highway is the place we come to eat,’ right? It’s really the people who live here, and that (they) don’t have to go to downtown or Midtown to feel that their art is valid. They can do that here,” Hernandez said.

The Buford Highway Arts Festival will showcase artwork from a variety of local students, including Cross Keys High School. This piece by Yohanna Morales will be on display. (Courtesy of Yohanna Morales)

What to expect at the Buford Highway Arts Festival

The evening will begin at 7 p.m. at the Chinatown Mall with displays of visual artwork from nearby schools, including work from students at Cross Keys High School. There will also be informational tables from several local organizations.

After the art viewing, there will be words of welcome and introduction, followed by performances by spoken word artists and a presentation by the Asian Student Alliance on the history of Buford Highway.

“I think to be able to hear it from the perspective of students in the community, and what it has meant to them … I would say that’s a lot more powerful in learning about the community," Hernandez said.

Finally, the festival will feature three short films, including one produced by Hernandez, Rhodes and some of their friends called “Con Permiso,” which follows a young girl’s journey across Buford Highway as she searches for her mother, who she needs to sign a permission slip for a field trip.

They will also present “Nuestra Realidad,” a film made by a group of local students about the strain immigration laws and policy have placed on young people’s mental health, and “Wokman,” a short film by Atlanta filmmaker Jeremy Thao that follows an immigrant Chinese family as they run their restaurant in Georgia.

The idea behind the Buford Highway Arts Festival originated with “Con Permiso,” which was made with essentially no budget.

Hernandez said the group wanted to use the film to give back to the community, and an arts festival showcasing the talents of local students felt like the perfect opportunity.

He and Rhodes reached out to schools and organizations along Buford Highway and in Clarkston and Stone Mountain, and they were pleasantly surprised to see how much people wanted to be involved.

“It goes to show there’s things that people wanna see in the community,” he said.

The event came at the right time for Cross Keys, which is in its first year offering an Advanced Placement arts program.

There will be 10 to 12 pieces of art on display from the high school’s AP art students, and almost all of the artists, plus their families, will be in attendance, said Nova Mead, the fine arts department chair at Cross Keys.

The Buford Highway Arts Festival will showcase artwork from a variety of local students, including Cross Keys High School. This piece by Sergio Soto-Pineda will be on display. (Courtesy of Sergio Soto-Pineda)

“Seeing people that you don’t know, strangers reacting to your art, looking at it, I think that would be a really good opportunity for them to see other people enjoying what they have created,” Mead said. “Your thoughts matter, you matter, we want to hear what you have to say.”

Creating opportunities for the next generation

When Hernandez was a student, he overheard a teacher talking about how great it was that the people who leave Buford Highway “at some point come back and try to pay it forward.”

Now, the 23-year-old is back in Georgia to help build an environment he wished existed when he was a student.

He couldn’t quite put into words how it feels to see these new art-focused opportunities becoming available for the next generation.

“To be able to now have those spaces where you can put yourself there and immediately be lifted by other people in your community, that’s amazing,” he said.

The Buford Highway Arts Festival will showcase artwork from a variety of local students, including Cross Keys High School. This piece by Sergio Soto-Pineda will be on display. (Courtesy of Sergio Soto-Pineda)

Hernandez hopes the Buford Highway Arts Festival will become a recurring event.

“I’m hopeful that in the same way that now we have, like, a children’s orchestra on Buford Highway, we can continue to create those spaces for the younger generation, for them to feel that there’s so much that they can say, so much that they can do,” he said.