Making the Exhibit Columbus Exhibition
Known as a hub of manufacturing and industry, Indiana’s impressive fabrication abilities shine in Exhibit Columbus design installations.
Columbus, Indiana — Opening August 21, the 2021 Exhibit Columbus Exhibition New Middles will feature thirteen site-specific installations around downtown Columbus. Designed by a global group of architects, designers, artists, and high school students, each is fabricated with the support and expertise of makers in Columbus, around the state, and beyond. In particular, the five J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize installations currently under construction highlight this group of specialized fabricators.
“Exhibit Columbus participants have an excellent history of working with some of the most innovative fabricators to create installations for each exhibition,” said Anne Surak, the director of Exhibit Columbus. “This is a place of makers, a place where advanced manufacturing and logistics have a huge impact on our economy. We’re immensely proud to highlight so many companies that are both philanthropic and creative.”
Each of the five Miller Prize recipients was awarded a $70,000 budget to create an installation for the three-month run of the exhibition, and each was responsible to create their own fabrication team. Designers often work to extend their budgets with in-kind contributions and grants, sometimes doubling or tripling the investment to allow for a more dramatic experience. The support from fabricators strengthens the community experience of Exhibit Columbus through involvement and contribution in the planning and building process. Each of the Miller Prize installations creates a story not only about the ideas packed into their installations, but how and from what they are made. Likewise, the seven University Design Research Fellows worked with a variety of experts to build their installations and the High School Design Team built their entire structure at Columbus North High School.
2021 Miller Prize Installation Fabrication Highlights
Columbus Columbia Colombo Colón by Dream the Combine (Minneapolis, MN) is a field of aluminum poles reaching upright twenty-four feet from the earth of Mill Race Park. The piece represents a network of places across the world named for Christopher Columbus, and each pole tells a different story. Dream the Combine fabricated the work in Minneapolis and transported it to Columbus. To install the fifty-eight poles they engaged the help of the City of Columbus Public Works team to bore the poles, which anchor five feet deep into the ground.
Cloudroom by Ecosistema Urbano (Miami and Madrid, Spain) features an enormous, inflatable canopy that rests atop a wood-frame structure. Located at Central Middle School, the inflatable was manufactured off-site in Burnsville, Minnesota, and provides shade for an open-air classroom and a multipurpose public space for students and the community to enjoy. The installation’s twelve-foot-tall wooden structure is being made by Ignition Arts, an Indianapolis-based company that is one of the country’s best fabrication shops known for engineering and making large-scale public artworks around the country. www.ignitionarts.com
Midnight Palace by Future Firm (Chicago, IL) features over two hundred light bulbs fitted into an ornate latticework of electrical conduit. This “wall of light” is inspired by the historic light bulbs from the streets of Columbus, highlighting the elegant craft of trade electricians. Midnight Palace also features a series of screens for evening programs in collaboration with Yes Cinema, in homage to a former drive-in theater. Gaylor Electric, one of the largest merit-shop electrical firms in the country, fabricated the project and ESL Spectrum generously provided the lighting for this project and several other installations.
Archival/Revival by Olalekan Jeyifous (Brooklyn, NY) features four large, ten-foot-tall colorful panels integrated with occupiable stage platforms and seating. The sculptural installation combines advanced manufacturing technology with augmented reality (AR). The CNC-milled wooden panels represent key figures and images from the Columbus Indiana Architectural Archive, including an African Art exhibition from the 1970s. Located at the Cleo Rogers Memorial Library Plaza, known as, “the living room of Columbus,” the installation also displays AR archival documents and objects—viewable by phone or tablet—developed by Olalekan Jeyifous. Indianapolis-based Brose Partington Company fabricated the sculptural and furniture elements. Throughout his decades-long career, Partington has built and installed artworks for public and private clients across the U.S. and beyond.
Alternative Instruments by Sam Jacob Studio (London, England) includes three sculptures along Washington Street. Each with a variety of colorful and playful elements such as symbols, languages, and alphabets that tie together images and stories near and far. This installation actively tries to tell a story through design and language at once, through medium and form. Alternative Instruments references Americana roadside signage, ancient devices like weather vanes, and textiles representing quilts and ship sails. This installation is also being fabricated by Brose Partington Company, who bent, welded, and painted steel tubing to create such small and unique pieces like the little dipper, and large pieces like a sail masthead, that make up the whole of this installation.
2021 University and High School Fabrication Highlights
The seven University Design Research Fellows are also producing installations with respective local fabricators and in-house university assistance.
Derek Hoeferlin from Washington University in St. Louis enlisted the help of graduate students to assist with prototyping, digital modeling, and CNC milling for the final model of the Mississippi Watershed for his installation, Tracing Our Mississippi.
Joyce Hwang from the University at Buffalo partnered with the shop department head, Wade Georgi, on welding steel and sourcing wood for her installation, To Middle Species, With Love. A team of eight graduate students learned MIG welding to construct the steel framing for the nine fourteen-foot tall bat houses.
Jei Jeeyea Kim from Indiana University focuses on material culture and its contemporary use of Indiana limestone. For her installation, LaWaSo Ground, limestone from a quarry an hour away at Bybee Stone Co. is highlighted as walls, steps, seating, and a tower. Kim collaborated with Cummins Inc. on crafting 3D-printed metal brackets which support the limestone stepping.
Ersela Kripa and Stephen Mueller from Texas Tech University, El Paso conducted a series of rapid prototyping to produce their project, Spectral. With the assistance of students from Project for Operative Spatial Technologies, a Texas Tech College of Architecture research center, the team tested and developed a custom repeatable, stackable self-structural module made of aluminum composite that connects together to form the installation.
Ang Li from Northeast University is working with Columbus company FastSigns to prototype and install metallic gold adhesive mylar film over a forty-foot-tall section of The Commons building facade for her installation Window Dressing.
Lola Sheppard and Mason White from the University of Toronto and Waterloo University worked with Ignition Arts to weld the metal framing that supports the curved lenticular plastic panels for their installation This Appearance Is _____.
Natalie Yates from Ball State University worked with Daniel Eisinger at the Ball State FabLab to create the CNC milled acrylic panels, aluminum frame, and robotic gantry for her project Calibrate.
The High School Design Team built their installation with a team of more than 50 students and the expertise of Columbus-based Force Construction.
The exhibition opens to the public on August 21 with free, public conversations featuring all of the exhibition participants. Opening Day events will take place outdoors in central downtown locations. Before the exhibition closes on November 28, a number of signature events will take place around the exhibition allowing visitors to learn about each installation and its design process.
Press Contact
Elizabeth Kubany
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