Richard McCoy
Last Saturday night, we were dancing underneath InterOculus, the brilliantly lit dome at the intersection of Fourth and Washington streets. This was a highlight from one of the best days in the eight-year history of Exhibit Columbus. My feet were shuffling on Washington Street bricks with hundreds of others cheering, clapping, and celebrating with one another. We were sharing joy!
It takes a lot of work to create a moment and a space where we can all feel safe and confident enough to feel joyful together. Our organization built this moment with a huge amount of involvement from many communities and supporters in Columbus and beyond. What was on the street that night looked and felt like the future of Columbus. I hope you want to experience that future again very soon!
The theme for this cycle of Exhibit Columbus is Public by Design. This is our authentic effort to use art, architecture, and design to help create new and meaningful connections with each other in the public spaces we share. In many ways, this theme is the decades-long soundtrack to the everyday movie of Columbus. I hope you will come downtown and experience the exhibition and explore new ways to make connections with different people in this community.
On the dance floor of Rock the Block, and all day last Saturday – from our exhibition tour, curatorial conversations, and all of the installation activations – I was with so many people that I did not know, people who were older and younger than me, people who were different from me, people who grew up in different countries, spoke different languages, and have different histories of their time in Columbus, Indiana. My family was there with many friends, colleagues, and those who designed and built this cycle of Exhibit Columbus.
In moments of joy and unity, differences dissolve, conflicts fade, problems are forgotten, and we can each find a way to feel that “I belong here with these people in this place,” and “This is who we are.” That’s a great and rare feeling in these ever-diversifying United States of America.
Including more can be hard work; getting to a new place takes a few extra steps (or maybe an Electric Slide or Cha-cha-cha), but as we experienced, it can make everyone feel better about where they live. Public by Design can improve people’s lives based on the core values of care, inclusivity, and generosity. Stating values like these can sometimes appear like grandstanding, but everyone who visits this exhibition and considers what it’s all about will glimpse them in their own way.
We need your help and participation to make Exhibit Columbus successful. We hope the installations unite people in new, fun, and thoughtful ways. Please learn about and enjoy each one. Tell others about them, help care for them, and leave them in good shape so others can do the same. Bring your family and friends downtown, and invite friends from nearby to visit with you.
Play games at Ground Rules, do something huge inside Echoes of the Hill, have your book club meet at The Plot Project, play country songs on your guitar on the A Carousel for Columbus, do whatever you can dream up at Machi, or read poetry at night inside PRISMA.
Here’s to every event this fall being the best it can be, carrying forward that same future we experienced last Saturday. Here’s hoping we can all live a bit more Public by Design.
Richard McCoy is the founding Executive Director of Landmark Columbus Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to caring for, celebrating, and advancing the world-renown cultural heritage of Columbus, Indiana. Send comments to [email protected].
