Wellspring is a large-scale, multi-year art project.

It’s a collaboration between The Curious Life, Conner Prairie & You :)

Wellspring is format-bending and genre-blending, and to be honest, it’s a little weird, haha. In its final form, Wellspring will be a huge interactive Artscape at Conner Prairie in 2026 (Artwork + playscape = Artscape)… Stepping into Wellspring will be like entering a surreal daydream of an artist at the river. You’ll search along the watery banks looking for buried artifacts, dash through secret passageways and under glowing roots, climb to the top of the sycamore tree following bird song, translate the poems written in a magic language (created specifically for the project), or breathe in the spirit of the Great Blue Heron. Mythology and story dance around you as you immersive yourself in our one-of-a-kind 360-degree narrative film circular cinema built custom for the Artscape. (Check out the Past Projects Page for examples of other Artscapes and installations :)

Wellspring is playful yet meditative, outward yet inward, child-like yet wise.

There is a spirit that lives within the space that invites you to look within yourself and see your connections to everyone and everything. Wellspring is a reflection of the curiosity and wonder that resides in the riparian ecosystem (relating to or situated on the banks of a river) along the White River. Wellspring is a reminder of your fullness as a unique individual, your birthright of joy, and of the wholeness we all share as members of the living, natural world.

Wellspring exists on the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary lands of the Kiikaapoi, Myaamia, Kaskaskia, and Lenape people.









We’ll start construction for the Wellspring Artscape in 2025 and are aiming for a Grand Opening in early 2026 (dates TBD), but before all that,
The Curious Life will show up every few months at Conner Prairie to do some Playful Research to create outdoor, temporary, and sight-specific around the CP campus. We’re calling this part of the project, The Wellspring Hut System. We’ll pair the Wellspring hut system with activities, public programs, and other joyful experiences where we work super closely with the CP education team to craft ongoing experiences. For example, we’re building a So(u)lar eclipse viewing hut in April (for the solar eclipse on April 8th - see our events page), where we will have sun-themed activities and projects. We’ll be building a river meditation hut along the river in July. This is all part of our playful research, which invites the community to be a part of how the project is shaped.

Additionally, this website will be an ever-unfolding garden for insight into our process and project: films, photos, free activities, meditation, playful research, and lots of other exciting stuff. So make sure to check back here regularly as the project unfolds.

If you have any questions, ideas, or thoughts, send a message on the “Say Hi” page at the top, and we’d be happy to chat :)

- Love, Wes Bruce & The Curious Life / Conner Prairie family