Land Art Generator Initiative
Where public art and energy generation combine
November 18, 2015
By Katie Jones Schmitt, the Benchmarking Outreach Coordinator for Center for Energy and Environment and the City of Minneapolis.
On November 9th, the Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) landed at Forecast Public Art. This exciting program, which seeks to combine energy traditions of yesteryear and creative clean energy ideas of today, inspired the room of approximately 30 artists, city staffers, designers, and engineers to think about how collaborations of artists, engineers, and architects can bring cleaner, more local, energy back to our cities.
In today’s world, powerplants typically serve one practical purpose: to provide energy in a cost effective manner. Many of them are located far from where the energy is used, are generally unslightly, and most people have no connection to energy generation. But it was not always that way. At the turn of the last century, powerplants were found in urban cores, since energy couldn’t be transmitted very far, and because of their central location, they took on architecture styles consistent with those of surrounding buildings of the time.