Local high school students are finding inspiration from the pillars of the Bartholomew County Veterans Memorial as they construct their architectural installation for Exhibit Columbus. The Exhibit Columbus high school design team, made up of students from North, East and CSA New Tech, gather once a week at North’s C4 classrooms with an artist’s rendition as their guide and experts at the C4 program helping with fabricating and construction. Cameron Swan, a North senior who is heavily involved with the project, pointed to the artist rendering of what the students hope will be their finished product — a Stonehenge-esque exhibit featuring 22 individual 8-foot-tall pillars arranged in a 20-foot-wide circle with a live tree at its midpoint. Each column will display artwork by local high school students that has been laser cut and engraved onto clear acrylic panels, which will be encased in sheets of milled aluminum, Swan said. Solar powered lights will be installed below each piece of art. The idea, Swan said, is for the light to reflect off the aluminum sheets and illuminate the artwork. There also will be additional rings of pillars that will get smaller and less uniform in size as they get further away from the center of the exhibit. “We’re really excited about it,” he said. Exhibit Columbus is an exploration of architecture, art, design that features a symposium and temporary installations that are inspired by the city’s heritage and “the role that a visionary community plays in growing a vibrant, sustainable and equitable city.” The high school student group is led by Darin Johnson, a C4 instructor at North. The designated location for the students’ installation is next to St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in downtown Columbus. The high school installation will join five featured Miller Prize Installations, five Washington Street Installations, six University Design Research Fellowships and a wayfinding and graphic design system by Thirst for a total of 18 temporary installations that will be open to the public from Aug. 24 to Dec. 1 around Columbus. The event is supported through Landmark Columbus and by the Heritage Fund — The Community Foundation of Bartholomew County, as well as grants and private and corporate donations. Exhibit Columbus’ initial exhibition in late 2017 attracted around 40,000 people in three months, according to organizers. It also had a first-ever high school installation downtown which was among the favorites that year. Swan was one of a handful of students who stayed after school at Columbus North Thursday to work on the new installation. The students have been planning their creation since last September, building a prototype of a pillar in January and beginning construction of the 8-foot-tall pillars in mid-March. As of Thursday, they had completed 13 of the pillars, each one standing on its end, towering over the students working on the floor. Swan said he expects the students to finish the frames for the artwork in two to three weeks. After the frames are finished, the students will cover them with concrete cement board, which Swan likened to boards of “fake cement” that can be screwed onto the wooden frames. Then, they will scrape on a material that will make the pillars look like they are made out of rock, but weigh far less than if they were made of solid concrete. Finally, the students will paint the pillars a dark grey color and install the lights and artwork. “We wanted it to represent growth and urbanization in Columbus,” Swan said. “If you look at a city from overhead, you see the center of the city where all the tall skyscrapers are, and as it moves out, the buildings get smaller and get residential. (The design of our project) invokes that as well … The goal is to invoke people to go in toward the center and view the artwork and move around.” Swan said the students had gone through several design possibilities before settling on the pillars. Initially, the students wanted to build a geodesic dome over a tree, but later realized that it was not feasible based on the materials available to them and the students’ construction skills. While Swan worked with Johnson and some other students who had come in after school, Peyton Donica, a North senior, was in another room down the hall, overseeing the production of the acrylic panels. As of Thursday, the team of students had finished 15 of 22 acrylic panels, Donica said. “We wanted to have student artwork, and we wanted it to represent Columbus,” Donica said. “Each piece of artwork represents their interpretation of Columbus.” Donica unveiled one sheet of acrylic that depicted some of Columbus’ landmarks and local residents. “This one is someone’s interpretation of Columbus — the different people around Columbus, the different types of people and how we have a lot of different ethnicities here,” he said. The students will cut a slot in the middle of the pillars to install lights and the artwork, Donica said. Testing has already been done so that the students know how the acrylic slabs will look with the lights. “When they light up, it will show all these lines that are cut into the acrylic and the images will just pop out,” he said. The artwork was provided by students in classes taught by Leslie Weaver, a North art teacher, and Robin Cain, a C4 instructor who teaches 3D visualization and animation, Johnson said. About 24 students from the three high schools have contributed to the project, though a core group of seven students have been involved with all phases of the project from design, development and the construction of the prototype, Johnson said. “I think this year’s (event) is going to surpass the last one,” said Johnson, who added, “I just really hope that everything works out for (the students). It’s completely their design.”
Local high school students are finding inspiration from the pillars of the Bartholomew County Veterans Memorial as they construct their architectural installation for Exhibit Columbus.
The Exhibit Columbus high school design team, made up of students from North, East and CSA New Tech, gather once a week at North’s C4 classrooms with an artist’s rendition as their guide and experts at the C4 program helping with fabricating and construction.
Cameron Swan, a North senior who is heavily involved with the project, pointed to the artist rendering of what the students hope will be their finished product — a Stonehenge-esque exhibit featuring 22 individual 8-foot-tall pillars arranged in a 20-foot-wide circle with a live tree at its midpoint.
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Each column will display artwork by local high school students that has been laser cut and engraved onto clear acrylic panels, which will be encased in sheets of milled aluminum, Swan said.
Solar powered lights will be installed below each piece of art. The idea, Swan said, is for the light to reflect off the aluminum sheets and illuminate the artwork. There also will be additional rings of pillars that will get smaller and less uniform in size as they get further away from the center of the exhibit.
“We’re really excited about it,” he said.
Exhibit Columbus is an exploration of architecture, art, design that features a symposium and temporary installations that are inspired by the city’s heritage and “the role that a visionary community plays in growing a vibrant, sustainable and equitable city.”
The high school student group is led by Darin Johnson, a C4 instructor at North. The designated location for the students’ installation is next to St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in downtown Columbus.
The high school installation will join five featured Miller Prize Installations, five Washington Street Installations, six University Design Research Fellowships and a wayfinding and graphic design system by Thirst for a total of 18 temporary installations that will be open to the public from Aug. 24 to Dec. 1 around Columbus.
The event is supported through Landmark Columbus and by the Heritage Fund — The Community Foundation of Bartholomew County, as well as grants and private and corporate donations. Exhibit Columbus’ initial exhibition in late 2017 attracted around 40,000 people in three months, according to organizers. It also had a first-ever high school installation downtown which was among the favorites that year.
Swan was one of a handful of students who stayed after school at Columbus North Thursday to work on the new installation.
The students have been planning their creation since last September, building a prototype of a pillar in January and beginning construction of the 8-foot-tall pillars in mid-March. As of Thursday, they had completed 13 of the pillars, each one standing on its end, towering over the students working on the floor. Swan said he expects the students to finish the frames for the artwork in two to three weeks.
After the frames are finished, the students will cover them with concrete cement board, which Swan likened to boards of “fake cement” that can be screwed onto the wooden frames. Then, they will scrape on a material that will make the pillars look like they are made out of rock, but weigh far less than if they were made of solid concrete. Finally, the students will paint the pillars a dark grey color and install the lights and artwork.
“We wanted it to represent growth and urbanization in Columbus,” Swan said. “If you look at a city from overhead, you see the center of the city where all the tall skyscrapers are, and as it moves out, the buildings get smaller and get residential. (The design of our project) invokes that as well … The goal is to invoke people to go in toward the center and view the artwork and move around.”
Swan said the students had gone through several design possibilities before settling on the pillars. Initially, the students wanted to build a geodesic dome over a tree, but later realized that it was not feasible based on the materials available to them and the students’ construction skills.
While Swan worked with Johnson and some other students who had come in after school, Peyton Donica, a North senior, was in another room down the hall, overseeing the production of the acrylic panels. As of Thursday, the team of students had finished 15 of 22 acrylic panels, Donica said.
“We wanted to have student artwork, and we wanted it to represent Columbus,” Donica said. “Each piece of artwork represents their interpretation of Columbus.”
Donica unveiled one sheet of acrylic that depicted some of Columbus’ landmarks and local residents. “This one is someone’s interpretation of Columbus — the different people around Columbus, the different types of people and how we have a lot of different ethnicities here,” he said.
The students will cut a slot in the middle of the pillars to install lights and the artwork, Donica said. Testing has already been done so that the students know how the acrylic slabs will look with the lights.
“When they light up, it will show all these lines that are cut into the acrylic and the images will just pop out,” he said.
The artwork was provided by students in classes taught by Leslie Weaver, a North art teacher, and Robin Cain, a C4 instructor who teaches 3D visualization and animation, Johnson said.
About 24 students from the three high schools have contributed to the project, though a core group of seven students have been involved with all phases of the project from design, development and the construction of the prototype, Johnson said.
“I think this year’s (event) is going to surpass the last one,” said Johnson, who added, “I just really hope that everything works out for (the students). It’s completely their design.”
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The students’ installation will feature 22 eight-foot-tall pillars arranged in a 20-foot-wide circle with a live tree at its midpoint. Each column will house artwork by local high school students that has been laser cut and engraved onto clear acrylic panels, which will be encased in sheets of milled aluminum.
Solar powered lights will be installed below each piece of art. The idea is for the light to reflect off the aluminum sheets and illuminate the artwork, according to Cameron Swan, a senior at Columbus North High School. There also will be additional rings of pillars that will get smaller and less uniform in size as they get further away from the center of the exhibit.
The installation was inspired, in part, by the columns from the Bartholomew County Veterans Memorial in downtown Columbus and the artwork represents growth and urbanization in Columbus.
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More than 24 high school students from Columbus East, Columbus North and CSA New Tech have contributed to the project, though a core group of seven students have been involved with all phases of the project from design, development and the construction of the prototype, including:
- Cameron Swan, North
- Dylan Gahimer, North
- Aretha Landero Gonzalez, North
- Cameron Kent, CSA New Tech
- Maia Shibata, North
- Chase Jones, East
- Peyton Donica, North
North C4 instructors Darin Johnson and Jeff Metz are co-sponsoring the project. Mike Metz, another North C4 instructor; Leslie Weaver, an art teacher at North; and Robin Cain, a C4 instructor at North who teaches 3D visualization and animation, have also been involved in the project.
All of the artwork for the installation was provided by students in art classes taught by Weaver and Cain.
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The Exhibit Columbus exhibition is a once-every-two-years display of a wide variety temporary architectural installations meant to highlight or somehow connect to nearby, permanent structures and buildings in Columbus.
The exhibition is set for Aug. 24 to Dec. 1 and is an exploration of art, architecture, and design.
Exhibit Columbus seeks to celebrate Columbus’ heritage while making it relevant in new and modern ways, according to organizers. It is the signature project of Landmark Columbus, which was created in 2015 to care for the design heritage of Columbus, and is under the umbrella of The Heritage Fund — the Community Foundation of Bartholomew County.
To learn more, visit: exhibitcolumbus.org
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