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Praise House Project
The Praise House Project: Standing on Hallowed Grounds
October 20 – December 15, 2023
A public art installation and immersive digital experience honoring the African and African American traditions of the Praise House and Ring Shout.
Hours of Operation
Open to the public Friday, Saturday & Sunday: noon – 5 p.m
Expanded Hours Beginning Dec. 7
Weds - Sun: noon - 5 PM
location
Glenn Memorial United Methodist Church
1660 N. Decatur Road, Atlanta, GA 30322
Visitor Parking available in Fishburne Parking Deck.
Additional Resources
Praise House Project website
Slave Voyages: the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database
Oxford Historical Society
Did you miss our opening celebration? Here's a recording of the special event.
Praise Houses were small, usually wooden structures commonly used for worship by enslaved peoples across the American Southeast. As an act of resistance, congregants would gather in circle to stomp or shout upon the wooden floors, performing what was known as the Ring Shout (full body rhythmic movement). This act ultimately created a communal drum—secretly preserving their cultural identity and traditions.
"Like these historic structures, the Praise House Project creates a safe space to imagine a new freedom today."—Charmaine Minnifield
Meet the Artist
Firmly rooted in womanist social theory and ancestral veneration, the work of Charmaine Minniefield draws from indigenous traditions as seen throughout Africa and the Diaspora to explore African and African-American history, memory, and ritual as an intentional push back against erasure. Her creative practice is community-based as her research and resulting bodies of work often draw from public archives. Minniefield recently served as the Stuart A. Rose Library artist-in-residence at Emory University. Through a collaboration with Flux Projects, she presented her work Remembrance as Resistance: Preserving Black Narratives in Atlanta’s historically segregated cemetery to honor the over 800 unmarked graves that were discovered in the African-American burial grounds. Minniefield was awarded the prestigious National Endowment for the Arts Our Town Grant to present her Praise House project at three different locations in the metro Atlanta area to celebrate the African-American history of those communities. She currently splits her time in residence between Atlanta and the Gambia, where she continues to study the origins of her cultural identity and Indigenous traditions by tracing the Ring Shout. Her exhibition entitled, "Indigo Prayers: A Creation Story" was recently presented by the Michael C. Carlos Museum on the campus of Emory University in Atlanta.
Recent News
Saving Praise Houses Before Their African Lineage Is Forgotten—The New York TimesPraise House Project public art installation opens at Emory with events beginning Oct. 14Construction begins on public art installation the Praise House Project, coming to Emory in OctoberAtlanta artist Charmaine Minniefield’s talks reclaiming Black narratives in ‘Indigo Prayers’Carlos Museum plans events to mark end of Indigo Prayers exhibit, launch of Praise House ProjectEchos of the Ring Shout are still fighting Black erasure centuries laterNew art series highlights the impact of Atlanta’s 1906 race massacre
