COLUMBUS, Ind. — Organizers of Exhibit Columbus, a celebration of the design legacy of the city through its annual exploration of architecture, art, and design, have announced its curatorial theme for the 2020-2021 cycle. And they also have unveiled the prestigious J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize recipients and other participants.
And, once again, the Miller Prize winners reflect a global connection, reminding people of the city’s worldwide impact in design circles.
For the 2021 Exhibition, which will take place fall 2021, co-curators Iker Gil and Mimi Zeiger have invited the J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize recipients (as well as the University Design Research Fellows and a High School Design Team) to create site-specific, future-oriented installations, which will be developed over the coming year in response to the theme: “New Middles: From Main Street To Megalopolis, What Is The Future of The Middle City?”
This 2020-2021 symposium and exhibition cycle explores the future of the center of the United States and the regions connected by the Mississippi basin. “New Middles” speculates on the heartland, an ecology stretching beyond political borders, from north to south, from the Canadian border to the Gulf, and from east to west, from Appalachia to the plains.
The locations and the current structures the prize winners are paired with will be announced later. The exhibition attracted an estimated 40,000 in-person viewers or event attendees its first year in 2017. And organizers estimate another 30,000 people visited the 18 structures in 2019.
The curators say that the “New Middles” theme builds upon Columbus’ legacy as a laboratory for design as civic investment.
The J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize is the centerpiece of Exhibit Columbus and honors the lifelong legacy of two leading patrons of the community and leading advocates of Modernist architecture. The 2020-21 J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize recipients represent practices that celebrate design and have a deep interest in research and making, Exhibit Columbus organizers said. The curators said that the firms have been selected for their commitment to the transformative power that architecture, art, and design have to improve people’s lives and make cities better places to live.
This year’s J. Irwin and Xenia Miller Prize winners are:
• Dream the Combine (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
• ecosistema urbano (Miami, Florida, and Madrid, Spain)
• Future Firm (Chicago, Illinois)
• Olalekan Jeyifous (Brooklyn, New York)
• Sam Jacob Studio (London, England)
For more on this story, see Wednesday’s Republic.
