Pop-Up Parks Exhibit: 100 Years of Union County Parks

About the Program

Category: Parks and Recreation (Best in Category)

Year: 2022

Years of work and planning led to the creation of Union County parks, even before the Union County Parks Commission was established in 1921. Residents and officials documented the landscape using still and aerial photography. Local groups discussed their needs for years before shovels broke ground. The famed Olmsted Brothers Landscaping Architects firm did extensive mapping and illustrations for the proposed parks. As the park system grew, neighborhoods and new development took advantage of the recreational opportunities and open space these new parks provided. All of these stages, events, and documents are captured in photographs stored in the Union County Archives, hidden to most people. Union County sought to commemorate the Centennial of Union County Parks in 2021, by displaying images from the Archives, with the goal of celebrating the Parks while informing and educating county residents about the work done creating our parks. The pandemic and COVID Social Distancing requirements dictated that public events and indoor exhibits be canceled. Then we recalled a phrase from our parks history: “As long as those in charge of the parks continue to recognize that each generation finds its own way and makes its own rules, the land can only become more important than ever.” Using the concept of standing in history, we created a portable, a Pop-Up Photo Exhibit, commemorating “100 Years of Union County Parks,” a series photographs capturing the history of the parks over 100 years. The exhibit was created and installed in the Parks, allowing the images and information to be highly accessible while retaining pandemic safety guidelines. The exhibit moved from park to park throughout summer 2021. Through this exhibit, people were informed about the past while standing in the actual locations where the historic events occurred, envisioning those events through the historic photos.