The IMA’s 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park comprises an expanse of land and water that has been uniquely shaped by both natural and man-made changes in the environment. It is a landscape that speaks of continuous growth and adaptation. The physical terrain of the Park is notable for its variety—it embraces woodlands, wetlands, a meadow, lake, river and canal.

Situated in a floodplain that is defined by the distinctive curve of the White River on one side and the straight form of the man-made canal on the other, its landscape is shaped by the dynamic character of the water that runs through it. As a floodplain, it is a place of constant change, as the lake rises and falls through the seasons, in accord with the river’s flow. As a tributary of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, the White River is part of the nation’s largest watershed, which stretches all the way from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.

The landscape of 100 Acres has undergone significant changes in the last century. In the early 1900s, this land was cleared for agricultural use and was used by farmers for cultivation of crops and pasture through the 1940s. Later the site became a quarry and gravel was excavated for use in the construction of the nearby interstate highway, part of the network of superhighways that connect the country (and which relate to Indianapolis’s nickname, “The Crossroads of America”). The lake was created as a result of the mining excavations. After the completion of the highway, the land was abandoned and nature slowly reclaimed it, turning cleared fields into a woodland. The landscape of 100 Acres is thus distinctive in reflecting the give and take between natural and man-made interventions.

As one of the important geographical features of the city of Indianapolis, the White River has been the focus of greenway development in the city over the past century. In 1885, two years after the founding of the Art Association of Indianapolis (which would evolve to become the Indianapolis Museum of Art), the city created a board of park commissioners who were assigned the task of developing a city-wide park system. The board hired John C. Olmsted—son of the famed Frederick Law Olmsted, who had worked on the influential landscape plan for New York’s Central Park in the mid-19^th century—to develop a comprehensive plan for a series of parks located along Indianapolis’s river and streams. The rapid industrialization during this period, and the accompanying growth of cities, had resulted in a need for weaving nature into the fabric of the city. Indianapolis quickly grew outwards from the center point of its urban grid, starting at Monument Circle. The community of Woodstock was founded in the early 20^th century as part of a nationwide movement to create tree-filled suburban enclaves where the beauty of nature could be preserved. Between 1912 and 1913, the Oldfields estate was developed by Hugh McKennon Landon, an Indianapolis Water Company executive, who hired the Olmsted firm to plan and design the grounds of his estate in Woodstock, which overlooked the farmland that was then adjacent to the White River. In 1932, J.K. and Ruth Brinkmeyer Lilly purchased the Oldfields estate and lived there until 1966. That same year, the Lillys’ children, Ruth Lilly and J.K. Lilly III, donated the estate to the Art Association of Indianapolis, the organization which became officially known as the Indianapolis Museum of Art in 1969.

The 1970s were marked by a reawakening of interest in the value of parks and parkways to the quality of life in Indianapolis. In 1972, as part of that trend, 96 acres of White River floodplain were given to the Museum by the firm Huber, Hunt and Nichols, which had operated the quarry there. In the mid-1980s, the IMA’s Horticultural Society initiated the creation of a master plan for the landscape of the Museum campus, created by Sasaki Associates. While the land and gardens immediately adjoining the main Museum building and Lilly House were the initial focus of development, in 1996 the IMA’s strategic plan called for a sculpture park, which would capitalize on the expanse of land that had not yet been fully utilized by the Museum up to that point. This paralleled the development of the city’s greenways plan, and the IMA joined with Indy Parks Greenways and the Indianapolis Water Company to form a partnership to develop a nature trail and an art and nature park. In 2000, the first master plan for the park was created by the landscape architectural firm Moore Iacofano and Goltsman (MIG), of Berkeley, California, which focused on how the Museum could expand its audience by engaging the many people who walked, jogged, and biked along the canal pathway that ran through its campus. Four years later, the Museum invited The Landscape Studio and Marlon Blackwell Architect, in collaboration with Mary Miss, to begin developing the park’s programs and design. Miss, known for her pioneering work in public art, developed a plan for an elevated walkway that would guide visitors on a path through the varied landscape. However, when the costs and environmental impact of her project were deemed prohibitive, the Museum’s leaders took the opportunity to rethink the master plan for the park.

In reconceiving the vision of the park—the future 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park—the Museum sought to find a way to not only offer residents of the city a space in the urban landscape where they could experience the pleasure of being immersed in nature and art, but to also offer a new paradigm for what an art and nature park could be. While there are many outdoor art parks worldwide that have sprung up over the past several decades, they typically focus on inserting large-scale sculptures into a cultivated landscape. For the IMA’s Art & Nature Park, the untamed landscape itself would be a primary focus of the visitor’s experience. To this end, landscape architect Edward L. Blake Jr., founding principal of The Landscape Studio in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, was brought in to carve out pathways that would allow visitors to explore the variety of natural beauty that could be found there. Calling the pathways he designed “Landscape Journeys,” Blake draws attention to the sense of discovery that is offered throughout the Park’s varied topography. Architect Marlon Blackwell’s visitor center offers a unique experience of the Park as well, with its architecture embracing the environment around it in unique ways. With its environmentally responsible LEED-certified design, it also serves as a model of thoughtful building practices.

The model of how art would be presented in the Park was reconceived by the Park’s director, Lisa Freiman, who since joining the IMA in 2002 had advocated for site-specific art, which would allow artists to develop new projects conceived in response to the Park’s particular landscape. The notion of site-specific art has played an especially important role in contemporary art since the 1960s, when artists exploring the newly formed category of Land Art started taking the physical environment itself as a material for their art, drawing attention to a range of concerns about human beings’ place in their physical environment. Freiman and her team envisioned the Park as a unique place in Indianapolis’s community, where visitors could have new and meaningful experiences with nature and art. To accomplish this, she invited an international array of artists who worked with divergent creative practices to create newly commissioned site-specific works of art. Thus, the Park also provided artists with a significant creative opportunity and the chance to work on a large scale. Each of the eight inaugural artists and artist collaboratives was invited to visit the Park, and each responded to distinctly different facets of the Park’s topography and its potential place in the cultural life of the city. Each year, a new artist will be commissioned to create a project for the Park, so that the varied content of artwork in 100 Acres will reflect the dynamism of the natural world itself.

Nature has long provided inspiration to artists, and the natural environment is a refuge and space for discovery, relaxation, and inspiration for many people as a part of everyday experience. In the unique way that it brings together art and nature, the Park is meant to provoke a visceral, sensory response. It provides a space for looking at art and also for experiencing it in relation to the distinctive environment in which it is inextricably enmeshed. The imaginative breadth of the projects presented here is aimed at sparking a sense of creativity and new possibilities in the diverse audiences who visit the Park. Whereas most sculpture parks are composed of a space where nature has been carefully cultivated, 100 Acres presents a very special combination of both a cultivated landscape and something that is more wild and unmediated, allowing for new possibilities of engagement with both the creative and natural worlds.