Background mural: Original artwork by renowned artist Charly Palmer and Emory students. Image courtesy of Charly Palmer.
Starting in February, Emory Libraries, the Michael C. Carlos Museum, and the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship will be coordinating a series of exhibitions and programs that will lead up to the World Cup soccer events in Atlanta in June and July. Updates will be made to the “Footwork” webpage as additional details become available.
Clint Fluker, senior director of culture, community, and partner engagement for Emory University Libraries & Museum, serves as the project lead for the Footwork Initiative, coordinating multiple programs and three exhibitions across the Carlos Museum and two libraries, with Bridgette Gunnels, associate dean and director of the Center for Pathways & Purpose at Oxford College, leading the initiative at Oxford.
“I’m excited that we have taken this step to celebrate the World Cup games,” says Fluker. “This is an important moment for Atlanta where we get to embrace a sport that means a great deal to this city and to our community here at Emory University. We are especially grateful for the opportunity to engage our student body in a variety of activities, exhibitions, and other initiatives that will hopefully enrich their experience at Emory in the spring leading into the games over the summer.”
“These exhibitions examine the history, culture, and role that soccer has played in Atlanta, GA and Emory University since the late 1960s,” Fluker adds. “Each of the curators within the Libraries and the Carlos Museum are diving into the dynamic ways in which soccer enables us to celebrate our international, regional, and personal identities through sport, community and individual expression.”
Exhibitions include:
“Footwork: Celebrating Soccer, Culture, and Community”
Opens Feb. 19, 2026 (Opening event in the Jones Room with curator conversation same day, time to be announced)
Schatten Gallery, Level 3 of Woodruff Library
This exhibition explores soccer as culture and identity. Drawing on Emory’s scholarship, collections, and global partnerships, the exhibition traces Atlanta’s intertwined stories of soccer, civil rights, and globalism from 1968 to today, showing how our region, our teams, and even our sneakers express who we are.
“Footwork” is co-curated by Randy Gue, Rose Library assistant director of collection development and curator of political, cultural, and social movements, and Melissa Carnegie, founder of Kicks & Fros, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based lifestyle brand empowering Black and Brown women in the sneaker community.
Rose Library materials on view will include memorabilia, historical photographs, and artifacts documenting the city’s first major soccer team the Atlanta Chiefs (1967-1973, 1979-1981), the National Professional Soccer League, and the formation of the North American Soccer League.
The section curated by Carnegie will display sneakers, including the iconic Samba shoe, and will shine a light on how soccer and other athletic wear affects street wear and culture.
“Being part of this exhibition allowed me to highlight sneakers as more than objects; they’re storytellers of identity, creativity, and community,” says Carnegie. “Within Footwork at Emory, this work connects sneaker culture to the history of soccer, Sambas, and the lasting crossover between the field and style.”
“Footwork Firsts”
Opens February 2026
Second Floor Gallery, Oxford College Library
Curated by Oxford College archivist Kerry Bowden and student curators Dylan Singer and Claudia Fodor, the “Footwork Firsts” exhibit will spotlight the college’s pioneering moments in both Oxford’s soccer program and diversity, including the stories of Oxford’s first African American athletes and the early women’s soccer program. The Oxford library will also exhibit soccer-related student photography curated by Tasha Dobbin-Bennett, associate professor of art history.
“We’re thrilled to have these cross-campus collaborations and exhibits celebrating Oxford’s soccer history alongside the 2026 World Cup events in Atlanta,” says Oxford Library director Ellen Neufeld.
“Footwork: Where We Gather”
Works on Paper Gallery, Michael C. Carlos Museum
Feb. 26-July 19, 2026
“Where We Gather” pairs historical sports photography by Walter Iooss Jr. with a new body of work by Atlanta-based photographer Sheila Pree Bright. Iooss’s photographs capture the plays that inspired the roar of the crowd, while Bright’s work focuses on the fans themselves and the spaces where they gather, documenting how sport can build a community and family that not only supports a team, but one another.
“I love this work,” says exhibition and Works on Paper curator Andi McKenzie. “It feels like a new kind of sports photography, one that finds the foundation of professional sports in fan communities. By focusing on the fans, Sheila locates the vibrant clusters who build the sound of a stadium, who gather at tailgates to share food and prognostications, and who return to each other and to a team without fail, always with a sense of hope regardless of the record.”
The exhibitions and events planned for the Emory Libraries and Carlos Museum are part of a larger Footwork initiative across Emory University that will include a student-focused speaker series on careers in the sports industry starting January 2026 and a sneaker fandom event at Oxford College beginning in March 2026. Visit the Footwork webpage for updates as details develop.