Exhibit Columbus’s 2024–25 curators have selected this upcoming iteration’s J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize recipients and university design research fellows. These names will work with community members in Columbus, Indiana, to create installations at various locales.
Adaptive Operations, Studio Barnes, Studio Cooke John, and AD—WO are the Miller Prize winners. Chandler Ahrens, Constance Vale, and Kelley Van Dyck Murphy; Sarah Aziz; Akima Brackeen; César A. Lopez, Jess Myers, Amelyn Ng, and Germán Pallares-Avitia; Suzanne Lettieri and Michael Jefferson; and Andrew Fu, Aaron Goldstein, and Aleksandr Mergold are the research fellows.
Yes And is the fifth cycle’s theme, a concept which takes root in improv theater, curators said. The happening will invite participants and viewers to “collaborate in the creation of the ongoing performance of the city” and “work from existing material to shape positive change.”
Exhibit Columbus No. 5
The site Adaptive Operations, a Chicago office, will negotiate is Columbus’s Crump Theater, an old art deco landmark. AD—WO will work with the former Irwin Block Building, which burnt down in 2022. Studio Barnes’s contribution will be sited at the Jackson Street Parking Garage, and Studio Cooke John will be at the Eliel Saarinen–designed First Christian Church’s sunken courtyard.
The 2024–25 cycle’s curators were Could Be Design’s Joseph Altshuler and Zack Morrison; Indianapolis-based poet Too Black; Duvall Decker’s Mila Lipinski of Jackson, Mississippi; Dr. Rasul Mowatt from North Carolina State University; and Elizabeth Blasius and Jonathan Solomon of Preservation Futures.
“We selected these four Miller Prize participants to match at an interesting site based on their remarkable body of work and approach to design and culture,” curators said in a joint statement. “We’re excited to have all of the participants in town later this month to meet with members of the community as they begin to shape their ideas around the theme Yes And.”
“The high level of research represented by these six University Design Research Fellows is inspiring and we are honored to showcase their work in this cycle of Exhibit Columbus. Together, these professors place emphasis on the curatorial theme, Yes And, in their own way, and collectively allow us to build an exhibition that has curatorial depth across the country,” curators continued.
Sing-Sing Studio, a Los Angeles office, is designing Yes And’s graphic identity.
The high school design team will be shepherded by student R. Spencer Steenblik and teacher Darin Johnson.
Yes And will open on August 15, 2025.
