Power of Place

Power of Place takes guests on a time-traveling journey through three different vignettes using the White River as a vehicle. The story begins with glaciers melting and forming the river that will carry guests along the rest of their journey. In this first vignette, guests are watching the land form in fast forward. Along the way, trees grow, natural forces destroy and regenerate, and wildlife populates. Then guests are invited to follow the turbulent White River and travel forward.

In the second vignette, guests are introduced to several different stories of people who have called this land home. The beginning threads of challenging histories unfold through immersive projection as figurative breadcrumbs designed to inspire a desire to learn more about these stories elsewhere during their visit to Conner Prairie. At the conclusion of this section, guests are invited to follow the White River again to continue their time traveling journey. With the introduction of man, the river experiences an unfortunate transition.

In the third and final vignette, guests learn about the importance of the White River to the communities around it today. They learn about how Conner Prairie strives to conserve and care for the river and the land that it sits on as an oasis in the urban sprawl that has grown up around it. Guests leave feeling a sense of inspiration for the history that has happened along this river, and how they can be a part of the story that is still being written today.

The initial design of this space was much smaller than what was actually built. Time travel was always a concept, and the early brainstorms were heavily influenced by this scene from the 2014 Universal Studios film, “Lucy.” In this concept, I proposed using mirrors and other illusions to make guests think they were entering a typical log cabin reminiscent of structures that Conner Prairie is known for in their outdoor historic areas. This cabin would have been a sort of pre-show or gathering place for guests who are waiting for the next show to start. However, this cabin would have ultimately opened up into a larger, hidden room where the time travel sequence would have unfolded through projection mapping on various surfaces. While this concept was not used, the idea of seeing history unfold in fast-forward did materialize in our first vignette in the final design.

In a later iteration after the exhibit footprint expanded, I toyed around with a layout that would have kept the log cabin entry experience with a secret door through a fireplace that would have plunged guests into the White River for their time-travel journey. This iteration kept the fast-forward film concept in a domed theater and combined it with other physical spaces where other stories could be told.

The final design went through an iterative process. There were initially five vignettes within the experience, but as the project progressed through the development cycle, budget constraints lead to the removal of two of those vignettes. The two vignettes that were removed were “Windows into Past Lives,” where guests could have viewed objects from the museum’s collection to help tell the stories of the past, and “Go Explore,” where guests would have been presented with other experiences throughout Conner Prairie that they can explore.

The first two images represent the changes from the initial bubble floorplan to the final design. The last four images are concept renderings of the entry/transition into the experience, followed by each of the three surviving vignettes.