We are excited to introduce our distinguished 2026 Artists in Residence at the Public Art Futures Lab. This year, our selected artists bring a rich collection of projects that blend technology, art, and community engagement, enriching Fulton County's cultural landscape. Here's more about each artist and their upcoming projects:
Ivan Reyes | Downtown Atlanta Inc. Artist-in-Residence
Ivan Reyes is a self-taught creative technologist whose practice blends digital and physical media, exploring accessibility, cultural identity, and the expressive potential of emerging technologies. Drawing from his personal experiences and a deep interest in “technology as magic,” his work often invites audiences into interactive, participatory environments.
For this residency, Reyes proposes a participatory augmented reality project that transforms a Downtown Atlanta park into a living “Memory Garden.” Using generative AI, computer vision, and GPS-based AR, community members will contribute phygital objects that bloom into a shared, evolving digital landscape to turn everyday spaces into sites of imagination, reflection, and collective authorship.
Artist Bio:
Ivan Reyes is a creative technologist raised in the Bay Area and now based in Atlanta, Georgia. His early introduction to computers shaped his artistic practice and laid the foundation for a lifetime of technical self-education, which serves as a powerful complement to his BFA in Illustration from SCAD.
With three decades of experience in digital media, Ivan has spent his career producing content and interactive experiences focused on emerging technology. He is now bridging that expertise into the world of fine art. His recent exhibit, Technoterria, explored the next 100 years of technological advancement through the lens of a retrospective set in the year 2125. This speculative vision was featured on Georgia Tech's Interactive Media Zone 40-foot video wall, accompanied by 10 touch screens that displayed in-depth concepts spanning 10 distinct eras.
Ivan is dedicated to presenting an optimistic view of the future. He believes this vision is achievable by embracing emerging innovations and technology-enhanced artistic tools.
Sophia Edwards | Downtown Atlanta Inc. Artist-in-Residence
Sophia Edwards is a visual artist whose work is grounded in Black storytelling traditions, Southern craft, and digital media, exploring how fabrication and narrative can bridge lived experience and imagined futures. Her practice draws from quilting as a form of cultural preservation and collective memory-making.
Quilt Tiles is a community-driven projection mapping installation that reimagines quilting as a dynamic, digital experience. Through a custom web platform, community members will contribute images, colors, and stories that are algorithmically translated into a generative quilt projected at scale in Downtown Atlanta. Centering participation and shared authorship, the project creates a patchwork that reflects the layered identities, histories, and experiences of the city.
Artist Bio:
Sophia Edwards (b. 2002 lives and works in Atlanta, GA) is a multimedia visual artist exploring Black storytelling traditions through projection design, textile arts, and zine-making. Edwards graduated from New York University Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Interactive Media Arts. Her work has been exhibited at CultureHub New York and the Weeksville Heritage Center in Brooklyn, NY.
A2D| MARTA Artbound Artists-in-Residence
A2D is a collaborative duo of artists Luther Ocasio and Garrett Braun, whose practice focuses on interactive projection and installation works that translate sensory data into shared public experiences. Using tools such as projection mapping, generative visuals, and responsive systems, they create environments that respond to people and place in real time.
Signal Garden: Transit Bloom is a generative media installation designed for MARTA transit environments, bringing Atlanta’s ecological identity into everyday commuter spaces. Through projection, light, and responsive visual systems, the work transforms station architecture into a living ecosystem of blooming native plants, drifting particles, and branching forms. Designed for both brief encounters and repeated engagement, the project offers a calming, shared visual experience that reconnects riders to the natural systems embedded within the city.
Artist Bios:
Luther Ocasio is an interdisciplinary artist and designer based in Atlanta, Georgia who creates responsive mixed reality environments rooted in ecological principles. His installations use digital tools like VFX, projection mapping and Touch designer with sensor modulation techniques to funnel data from biofeedback, environmental sensors to create generative visuals. Ultimately to deepen how people relate to the objects, environments, and nonhuman species they live alongside.
The installations he creates emphasize interaction and layered storytelling, exploring how perception shapes reality, and can shift the way we understand ourselves and the living systems around us. As co-founder of The Bardo, he is known for creating multi sensory worlds that blend digital media with biophilic physical spaces showcasing how nature and technology are one interconnected system. Recent projects include his projection mapped river commissioned by Dash Studio and Sense, an EEG- driven Audio-visual installation built with a Muse as headset and TouchDesigner. Ocasio's work has been featured at TedX Atlanta, Common Circuits Festival and at The Woodruff Arts Center.
Garrett Braun is a VFX Editor for film and television by day, and by night he operates under the stage persona, Bad Chroma. As Bad Chroma he uses knowledge of vintage cameras, CRT TVs, circuit bent processors, and audio & video synthesizers to create unique glitch art, concert visuals, and immersion installations. His mantra: ART=DATA=ART serves as a North Star guiding his practice. Garrett graduated from SCAD in 2018 with a BFA in Film/TV production and has worked as VFX editor on movies Creed III, Unstoppable and AV Tech with projects Cloud Nine with The Bardo and Google XI with Media Pollution.
Together, Luther and Garrett partner under the moniker A2D, short for Analog to Digital, to create interactive, immersive, and multidimensional works for Atlanta’s art scene. Their collaboration explores the space between tactile materiality and digital transformation, blending physical installation, responsive technology, and sensory design to build experiences that invite participation rather than passive viewing. Through projection, interactivity, spatial storytelling, and experimental media, A2D develops works that translate ideas, environments, and emotions across formats, turning analog presence into digital expression and digital systems into something felt, embodied, and communal.
M.E.A.T. | MARTA Artbound Artists-in-Residence
M.E.A.T. (Music Experiments in Emerging Arts and Technology) is a collective of musicians, engineers, and creative technologists dedicated to exploring the intersection of sound, community, and emerging technology. Their work centers on building immersive, interactive experiences that invite public participation and shared exploration.
For the MARTA Artbound residency, M.E.A.T. proposes a series of interactive, touch-based communal instruments installed within MARTA stations, inviting riders to engage with one another to generate spontaneous music. These sculptural instruments, embedded with sensors and speakers, translate touch into layered audio experiences inspired by Atlanta’s cultural landscape. Designed for playful, low-pressure interaction, the project encourages collective expression and connection, transforming transit spaces into sites of creativity and shared cultural experience.
Artist Bios
M.E.A.T. (Music Experiments in Emerging Arts and Technology) explores the intersection of music, community, and technology. We are a community organization that works with musicians, engineers, and audio enthusiasts to research and create new immersive technologies within the realm of sound. We aim to share our findings with our local Atlanta community through installations, experiences, events, and more.
(Members: Orlando Kenny, Matias Cevallos, Alex Suarez, Fiona Kelly-Lopez)
These residencies are made possible through the support of our residency partners, MARTA Artbound and Downtown Atlanta Inc.