Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park

Adjacent to the Museum and located on 100 acres that includes untamed woodlands, wetlands, meadows and a 35-acre lake, the Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park will be one of the largest museum art parks in the country, and the only one to feature the ongoing commission of site-specific artworks. When it opens in fall 2009, the Park will present art projects, exhibitions and discussions designed to strengthen the public’s understanding of the unique, reciprocal relationships between contemporary art and the natural world.

Recently, the Indianapolis Museum of Art unveiled the concepts for eight site specific commissions, which will inaugurate the Park when it opens in fall 2009. Atelier Van Lieshout, Kendall Buster, Alfredo Jaar, Jeppe Hein, Los Carpinteros, Tea Mäkipää, Type A, and Andrea Zittel, will create temporary, site-specific works that explore and respond to the varied environments of the Fairbanks Art & Nature Park. These eight artists will be the first in a series of ongoing commissions.

The Park site is bordered by the White River and adjacent to the IMA’s current 52-acre campus. Commissions for the park will be ongoing, with additional artists’ projects to be announced annually. The land, a former gravel pit, has evolved through a natural reclamation into its current state of untamed woodlands and wetlands. The IMA has engaged architect Marlon Blackwell and landscape architect Edward L. Blake to work with the selected artists to transform the 100 acres into an unparalleled art and nature park.