CHICAGO — A plan to create a 9-mile outdoor museum along Irving Park Road came one step closer to reality Monday, when the Chicago Community Trust announced a $75,000 grant for two "art installations and gardens" along the Des Plaines and Chicago rivers.
Set to be completed next summer, the first two pieces of the Portage Walking Museum would invite "modern travelers to follow the journey of Native Americans as they traveled back and forth from the Chicago and Des Plaines Rivers," according to Steve Weaver, a spokesman for the Chicago Public Art Group, which applied for the grant.
Weaver imagines the installations — one at each river — as "gardens with some kind of sculptural element" that "provides room for plants to grow, and also indicates some of the history and messages about Native Americans at those locations," he said.
The works wouldn't necessarily bring to life the block-sized public spaces envisioned all along Irving by the design firm Perkins+Will, but they're "part of planting the seeds of the larger project," Weaver said.
The gardens would also honor the principles envisioned by members of the Portage Park Neighborhood Association, Weaver said.
The association pitched the museum last year as a way to "make Irving more interesting and more pleasant, surprise people with something unexpected, and make them feel the presence of nature in the urban environment," according to president Patricia Conroy.
The sites and designs of the art fixtures will be crafted in the coming months with help from leaders of the American Indian Center, Weaver said.
