There are some amazing people who dive in to make something special happen that we all benefit from. They have big visions, and they don’t just talk it, they walk it…all the way to the finish line. They aren’t daunted by the enormity of the task. Or the numerous barriers in their way. They simply take one step at a time and persevere. And they achieve amazing results.
Anne Trumble and the crew involved with the Emerging Terrain Stored Potential project are among those that fall into this group of people. Anne & Emerging Terrain are behind the visual display on the old Brancroft street grain elevators we see just north of I-80. They spearheaded this collaborative artistic endeavor to re-purpose the derelict, yet iconic, historic landscape structure as contemporary cultural awareness.
I stumbled across a post about this effort last April and was very intrigued by the idea. The more I learned, the more intrigued I became and the closer I followed the developments
On Sunday, a perfect October day, I joined 500 people (including every featured artist) for an amazing dinner prepared with local products by local chefs at the base of the structure to culminate the success of this incredible project. And a success it is.
Rendering of the Concept by Min|Day Architects and Ashley Byars
The reality...Taken from the base
Those silos are so much bigger than they look from the interstate
The selected artists were from all over the country, including Hawaii. And they all came to Omaha to celebrate the project.
Dinner for 500 at one extremely long table. It was a real treat - the food and the company.
There are some great photos of the event and dinner (not like the cruddy ones taken by my phone) by Sarah-Mai at Eat Pure and on Emerging Terrain’s Facebook page. Slide show images at KETV. Video on WOWT.
About the visionary and organizer:
Anne Trumble is a landscape architect by training; a writer, teacher, and explorer by desire. Of course everything she does is about landscape, most notably those that actually aren’t designed but happen by chance, necessity, and accident. She’s lived, studied and worked in Vancouver, Cuba, Japan, New York, and most recently Madagascar realizing a serious predilection for islands – the antithesis of her upbringing in the bulls-eye of the United States – Omaha, Nebraska. Although she resides in New York City where she teaches landscape design at Columbia University and works on various design projects, she daydreams about the Jeffersonian Grid, thus explaining why she began Emerging Terrain, a non-profit research and design collaborative with a mission to creatively disseminate information to the public about the social, cultural, and economic factors that shape the built environment.
About Anne from the project background on Kickstarter.com:
“I’ve been obsessed with grain elevators since I was a little kid growing up in the Midwest. I remember going to the elevator to deliver grain. While sitting in line waiting for our turn to unload, I’d stare out the truck window up at the enormous structure and think “that would be so cool as something else”…………
Between then and now, I’ve traveled the world, studying and working in all things landscape; no adventure passed up that is even remotely related to how we use and interact with land. I’ve since re-focused the obsession to the Midwest, in particular suburbs in place of corn fields and thus, derelict grain elevators. They’re no longer necessary.
What do we do with these relics that are too heavily engineered to demolish?”
What she did was amazing. Artists from all over submitted designs and 13 of those now grace the tall slender structures for all of us to enjoy. The panels will hang in Omaha for 3-4 months then move on to other vacant elevators before being re-purposed into temporary shelter and sent to a country in need.
Bravo to all involved. And thank you!
