Year-long Bicentennial Celebration Starts This Weekend.
While COVID-19 along with recent protests over racial injustice have rightfully dominated headlines and gripped cities across the country, Indianapolis is preparing to give back on its 200th birthday.
Spanning the rest of 2020 and into 2021, the city will celebrate its bicentennial with a series of special projects and events.
The events kick off June 28 with a special program on local TV. Residents are encouraged honor the city’s birthday by giving back through blood donations, eating at local restaurants, and shopping at small businesses.
While the celebration itself might look different than many other special events in the city’s history, there are still plenty of things to be look forward to.
The Indiana Historical Society will curate special collections and identify resources about the people, places, and events that have shaped the Circle City. These will be digitized and placed online, while being presented in exhibitions and events across the city. The exhibit can also be seen at the History Center starting this year and running through 2021.
The education contributions won’t end there, however. With the help of the Polis Center at IUPUI and in collaboration with major cultural and heritage organizations in the city, leaders will organize a digital encyclopedia for the city that will call the Indianapolis Public Library home.
According to the bicentennial group, “the project will allow citizens and organizers to suggest entries, offer comments and contribute materials about neighborhoods and organizations to an open, online archive”.
Additional storytelling will take place when three media brands team up. WFYI, Ted Green Films, and Banayote Photography are teaming up to profile 25 builders who helped shape Indy into the city it is today. Research is currently taking place on who the 25 featured builders will be. But the project will include bi-weekly segments on WFYI, a digital archive, and even a coffee table book.
While other projects are in the works and proposals are still being accepted the future is bright in the Circle City.
