How do you visualize the experience of international travel? In 2013, Big Car was commissioned to create a temporary installation of public art at the Indianapolis International Airport. We landed on an energetic and colorful collage combination.
Indiana native and California-based artist/writer Ben Valentine curated and assembled cloud images sourced from the Internet, as a way to represent movement between cultures and geographies through a common sky open to the imagination.
Ben’s cloud imagery was combined with collages created by students at Enlace Academy and Gambold Preparatory Magnet High School of Indianapolis Public Schools (even principal Shane O’Day participated). These schools are located on Indianapolis’ west side in the Lafayette Square International Marketplace neighborhood – the center of the growing global culture of Indianapolis, where 70+ languages are spoken and ethnic eateries abound.
Some of the images in the collage are photos of food products taken by artist Megan Hart at Saraga International Grocery Store, also in Lafayette Square – along with imagery from National Geographic magazines.
The collage was installed at the airport from August 11 to November 7, 2013.
