INDIANAPOLIS — Residents of a west side neighborhood dedicated a new interactive art installation at their park Saturday.
It's called Bending Light and is a permanent addition to Shelton Heights Community Park at 3844 Rockville Avenue.
Using transparent acrylic rods, artist Lauren Zoll seeks to make light more visible by showing how it bends.
The installation includes a large "Sunburst" sculpture and two "reading stations" where visitors can see how words and patterns change when looking at them through the translucent rods.
"It shows what happens when we slow down to look at light," Zoll said.
The installation also shines the spotlight on a neighborhood that's made some significant changes the past few years.
Lifelong resident Debbie Parish said, "It was so bad I can't even put it in words."
The park was once the site of a mobile home community called Grandma Lloyd's. Parish said after it was abandoned and left to fall apart, it became home to drug dealers and prostitutes.
Fearful for the safety of her son and others in the neighborhood, she began a campaign to get it torn down. In the fall of 2016, the city bulldozed the property.
But Parish wanted more. She envisioned a park on the site where children could play.
She said initially, "I just wanted it clean, with slide and swing."
Fast forward five years, there's a shelter, play area, picnic tables and benches, a walking path and wildflowers.
The park is not part of Indy Parks. There's no city funding. Instead, they've relied on grants, donations, and volunteers to improve and care for the park. Keep Indianapolis Beautiful and Indy Gateway are among the partners.
Indy Gateway's Lisa Bentley said the plans are to keep adding to the park. But even now parkgoers "can have picnics, just sit and enjoy nature, walk their dogs, all of that. We're really excited."
Parish said she's thrilled with Bending Light and how far the park has come.
"It's turned into something I never imagined, so I didn't think a day like this would come," she said, "but it's restored my faith in everything."
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