First Impressions
Town Branch Park was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, in partnership with LexArts, to commission artists and designers from around the world to reinterpret the history and ecology of Town Branch through public art in the park. The winning art piece, called First Impressions, was designed by Jason Klimoski of StudioKCA. It is a small amphitheater built out of carbon negative concrete in the shape of a fossil — to represent the limestone geologic history of downtown Lexington. Steel strips of words in between each concrete piece of the fossil will mark different phases in history. The shape of the fossil uses the Fibonacci sequence, a mathematical concept found throughout nature.
— StudioKCA
GET TO KNOW THE ARTIST
Having original site-specific public art by StudioKCA will help Town Branch achieve its vision of becoming a world-class signature park for Lexington. StudioKCA has been honored with multiple design awards including four American Institute of Architects Awards, the AIA New York City of Dreams Pavilion Winner, a SARA New York Chapter Design Award of Excellence, two Chicago Athenaeum American Architecture Awards, three Interior Design Magazine Best of Year Award Honors, two Architizer A+ Award Finalists, and The Architect’s Newspaper Best of Young Architects Award Honorable Mention.
The firm's public pavilions and installations, such as Head in the Clouds, A Comet Lands in Brooklyn (Rosetta), NASA Orbit Pavilion, Drop, Skyscraper (the Bruges Whale), Night and Day, have been exhibited on Governors Island and Brooklyn Bridge Park in New York City, at the Center For Architecture in New York, the AIA National Convention, the World Science Festival, The Exploratorium Museum, The Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, The Huntington Library, Art Collection, and Botanical Gardens, Jan Van Eyck Square in Bruges, Belgium, and at the Jockey Club in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Lesley Chang
Jason Klimoski
ARTIST STATEMENT
“Our sculpture proposal, First Impressions, seeks to draw attention to the critical role all things big and small play in shaping what is to come. We hope to create a piece that makes visitors aware of our shared history on this planet, and encourages exploration and stewardship of our shared environment, in the hopes of making a positive impact on it.”
“There’s nothing more magical than finding a fossil and knowing you’re the first person to have seen it for 150 million years.” - Sir David Attenborough
EXPLORE “NATURE’S MATH”
First Impressions is embedded in the landscape of Town Branch Park, and takes its form from a giant Ammonite shell. Visitors can walk, sit, and climb on a sculpture based on an fossil and generated using the Fibonacci Sequence.
Sometimes called the Golden Spiral, the Fibonacci sequence appears throughout nature as a mathematical pattern in shells, sunflowers, pinecones, and many other forms.
HISTORIC TIMELINE SCRIBED INTO THE SHELL OF A FOSSIL
The piece is comprised of approximately 120 interlocking precast concrete panels bolted to a steel frame. Between each concrete panel is a flush-mounted steel “rib plate” inscribed with a historic event from our shared past — from the beginning of Earth’s geological record, to present day Lexington. Visitors are invited to read these historical events as they sit, climb, and explore the curved ridges of the shell.
HELPS TO KEEP THE AIR CLEAN
To reduce its carbon footprint and have a positive impact on the environment, we hope to build First Impressions’ concrete panels from 24,300 tons of locally sourced, reclaimed concrete from local construction projects and the Town Branch development. Doing so will not only divert this material from Lexington’s waste stream, it will capture approximately 900 kg of carbon dioxide and save 1,360 gallons of water per ton, equating to 21,870,000 kg of captured carbon dioxide, and 33,048,000 gallons of water saved. Additionally, our hope is to introduce a photocatalytic additive to the precast panels that will actively work to sequester and dissolve CO2 in the air, helping to keep the air (and the sculpture) clean on a daily basis.
ILLUMINATES AT NIGHT
LED fixtures are planned that will fit under the rib plate and will illuminate the shell at each joint, so that even at night when viewed from around the park, the shell will be visible within the overall landscape of Town Branch Park.
FIELD TRIP GUIDE FOR STUDENTS
Town Branch Park is teaming up with teachers from Fayette County Public Schools to develop a field trip guide to accompany the art design — to ensure the piece is useful to teachers throughout the district and to encourage classrooms to visit the park. The guide will cover curriculum standards and activities for math, science, social studies, and language arts.