Artifact 6: The Human Artifact

Kennyara Zephyr is a junior at Georgia State University, and is a Hospitality major at the College of Business. She has completed three internships while at the school, but chose to work with Special Events at the Tabernacle because it interested her. Beneath the main entrance of the venue, past a short flight of stairs, there exists a small painting of a pineapple in the corner of a hallway. Kennyara had just begun to tell me about the history of the Tabernacle, but paused to comment on the depiction. She described how the pineapple is the international symbol of hospitality. In the old days, “before people could look up hotels on Google,” travelers were unaware of inns or boardinghouses in foreign places; people would place pineapples outside their door to convey their readiness to take guests, and offer shelter and food. Her connection to the small painting in the hallway asserts that our daily interactions with built environments characterize the identity of a city like Atlanta.