If you’re in Indiana this weekend, head to Columbus! On Saturday, February 25, Exhibit Columbus will be hosting, a series of presentations by the participants in its fall 2023 exhibition, the theme of which is Public by Design. Per the name, the public is invited to attend the event, which is free, and are encouraged to participate in the creative process.
The participants will be showing design ideas for temporary installations to be placed in downtown Columbus during the exhibit. The designs have been developed based on ideas that were conceived during the symposium in 2022.
These winter presentations are a new feature of Exhibit, which started in 2016 and is currently in its fourth edition, extending the usual cycle, which includes a symposium one year and an exhibit the following year before the cycle repeats. The 2022–23 cycle’s theme, Public by Design, “builds on the legacy of Columbus, Indiana to explore how collaborations between communities and designers can revitalize and reimagine historic downtowns as equitable, beautiful, healthy, and joyful places,” per the Exhibit Columbus website.
According to a statement by this cycle’s curatorial partners: “This is going to be a special day for Exhibit Columbus as we reveal all of the design concepts connected to this cycle. Each of the participants visited Columbus for the 2022 symposium and now we get to see what they are proposing to create and how they arrived at their idea. Everyone attending will have the opportunity to provide feedback in a variety of ways. This public engagement is really key to his year’s theme.” Exhibit’s curatorial partners include Paola Aguirre of Borderless Studio in Chicago; Chris Merritt of landscape architecture practice Merritt Studio in Indianapolis; Lauren M. Pacheco of Steel Studio Foundatino; and Bryony Roberts of design and research practice Bryony Roberts Studio.
Presentations, which will include models of the installations, will be given by Exhibit’s four 2022–23 Miller Prize winners, Tatiana Bilbao ESTUDIO; Practice for Architecture and Urbanism; PORT; and Studio Zwede. Also presenting will be this cycle’s University Research Design Fellows: Joseph Altshuler and Zack Morrison of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign School of Architecture; Esteban Garcia Bravo and Maria Clara Morales of Purdue University Department of Computer Graphics Technology; Jessica Colangelo and Charles Sharpless of the University of Arkansas Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design; Deborah Garcia of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Architecture; Molly Hunker and Greg Corso of Syracuse University School of Architecture; Katie MacDonald and Kyle Schumann of University of Virginia School of Architecture; and Halina Steiner, Tameka Baba, Forbes Lipschitz of Austin E. Knowlton School at The Ohio State University and Shelby Doyle (Ames, Iowa) Iowa State University College of Design. Exhibit Columbus’s High School Design Team will also make presentations.
There will also be a poetry reading by Indiana State Poet Laureate, Matthew Graham; and Chris Grimley of the newly formed studio Signals will talk about the graphic identity of this cycle of Exhibit Columbus. “Kicking off the Design Presentations will be a great way to express, from a graphics perspective, the look and feel of the program and will begin to identify installation locations and an exhibition route,” Grimley said. “It has been a pleasure to build off of the previous Exhibit Columbus design work and add a new expression.”
