Client: City of Bloomington

Overview

Aurora Almanac invites the Bloomington community to notice that while feelings and experiences in our lives are temporary, they are meant to be experienced in totality, or full color, before we let them go. This artwork invites you to see the full color of seemingly mundane moments such as parking and climbing stairs, and to celebrate every moment and every day as a different color. The Trades Garage Building design includes two glass stairwell towers, one on the South facade and one on the North facade, each with 4 and 3 levels respectively. Each level of the garage includes its own independent frame arrangement, making a total of 7 frames. Each frame has either 24 or 48 tiles. There are 2 large panels (8’x6’) and 5 (6’x4’) panels. The installation is composed of 216 one-square-foot tiles in total. Each tile was designed by community members in the form of drawings through a series of community events. The drawings were interpreted into 3D models for fabrication. Each tile block was CNC milled using High-Density Urethane Foam and the frames are made of Aluminum. Each panel includes a dual RGB LED illumination system, enhancing a double-shadow effect. The LED color gradients were programmed through a DMX interface by the artist.

Goals

The Trades District is a modern, sustainable urban redevelopment designed to nurture creativity and entrepreneurship among its citizens and workforce. It seeks to promote Bloomington as a lively tech and innovation hub and provide living options for its citizens. The goal of this project was to activate the new garage with something that leveraged technological innovation to engage with the community adjacent to this new urban development.

Process

The experience of every individual is unique. Esteban Garcia Bravo also uses this artwork to represent the diversity and individuality within our community. There are a total of 216 unique designs and all were created in collaboration with different members of the community through a series of public design workshops in 2021. The workshop events took place at Banneker Community Center, The Mill, Trades District Garage, the Latino Cultural Center at Purdue University, virtually, and through an open-submission platform online.