Pecha Kucha: The Next Indianapolis
Indianapolis Museum of Art 2009
Often, the idea of neglect can be judged across multiple camps. It can begin at one moment as a casual, “I forgot†and at another moment, “abandonmentâ€. The space between these two moments is critical because it allows us to map how a community arrives at a current condition. It is here in these moments that we are able to recall memories that once made us feel proud of our newness and difference. A once viable substitute for living outside of the city, the suburban Devington Community was conceived in an era of design. Built as an urban alternative, this 50’s modernist community was imagined from ideologies inspired by the vanguard of the automobile and international contemporary design. A community motivated by modern convenience, freedom, integration, and consumption it became home to architects, doctors, and mayors, such as current Mayor, Greg Ballard. A community filled with neighborhoods known for their hilly streetscapes and difficult wooded landscapes, their architecture equipped us with a clear vision of what we valued and what we represented with in our city.
Neglect, unfortunately for a community is a cancer of the slow kind. It is both complex and political. It is the result of a system that no longer has confidence in your product, a mechanism that eventually handicaps. It is a prolonged disability which over time can dissolve one’s spirit of place. Disengaged, our community have allowed itself to be turned around. We have slowly become unfamiliar with our environment, our resources, and landscapes.
Neglect quietly deconstructs vision,allowing our potential and identity to simply hang loose. Our goals and covenants forgotten, we eventually become desperate. We become ashamed; unable to undo decades of damage to our vision.
An award of $10,000 would ensure that a vision be revisited. I believe this award would be helpful to my neighborhood association to develop the tools necessary to erase this neglect and inspire a new place. I often find it difficult to understand how our community will progress without a clear map of how we connect with resources, engage our curiosities, and visualize our future. This document, coupled with an international urban design competition will offer the type of divergent thinking needed
to inspire a “shift in development ideology for this area†and will ask that it come complete with a maintenance plan.
I shared my complete vision for Devington on November 12th, 2009. I believe it made a difference.
