Indiana State Fair 2024 Photos, Part 4: Land of the Glowing Giants

Side view of a T-Rex lying down with its mouth open and its tail sticking straight out horizontally.

Flee from the mighty T-Rex that gapes to all comers with its muscular jaws! Or relax at the table and chairs under its butt.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides, cooking demos, concerts by musicians either nearly or formerly popular, and farm animals competing for cash prizes without their knowledge. My wife Anne and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context…

As if Artscape and the chainsaw sculptures weren’t enough art: on the north end of the fairgrounds, the relatively new space known as The Backyard — which in 2023 was covered in basketball courts and dubbed Hoopfest — hosted an exhibit called Illuminate, comprising a collection of giant-sized organisms that look impressive in daylight but are actually huge lanterns activated at night. Online sources allege this is its second annual occurrence, except the previous works were Asian-themed and those same sources swear they were stationed in Expo Hall. Considering our 2023 visit to Expo Hall turned up only caged critters, I’d be curious to know the building’s exhibition timeline. It sucks to discover just now that we missed something cool.

Not this year, though. Behold: Illuminate! In daylight! I haven’t been to the State Fair at night in 23 years, and there’s no way we’d’ve had enough energy to stay awake and mobile from opening to closing time, so please enjoy some giant unlit lanterns in sunshine! With neon paint that’s, like, a kind of glowing!