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Call to artists, arts and community organizations — and you!

Call to artists, arts and community organizations — and you!

During this challenging time, Big Car Collaborative is supporting the community in general and artists and arts audiences by utilizing the very democratic platform of FM broadcast radio with our community- and art-focused station, 99.1 FM. This FCC-licensed broadcast station covers most of the city and beyond and streams worldwide from wqrt.org. We’re opening up unlimited free air time to community and arts partners, to neighbors, and to local artists of all kinds — especially musicians — to share important messages and provide enjoyable programming that draws people of all backgrounds together at a time when we’re facing a health crisis and a crisis of social isolation.

We’re also utilizing our social media platforms with a combined audience of more than 50,000 to share public service announcements and other important information — including what we and other arts organizations and artists are doing in response to the pandemic and social distancing. We’re also working on citywide projects like #FirstFridayFromHome where we encourage people to share art from their own homes on social media and talk about why it means so much to them.

More details here:

Call for 99.1 WQRT FM contributions: We’re seeking audio content to broadcast and share online from Indianapolis artists, musicians, and community builders – generally, the creative community. This content can be as short as a few seconds or as long as an hour. It could be as simple as a radio-friendly song, poem, quote, short story, or even tips or words of encouragement. Or you could propose and then create shows that might include things like panel discussions, community conversations, interviews, curated playlists (we can play all clean licensed music), arts education opportunities, community updates, self-guided walking tours or narrated walks, and health and wellness aspects such as meditations. 

Start by sharing your idea to email hidden; JavaScript is required. We will also share with you tips for recording at home on WQRT.org. Once you have an MP3, you’ll send it also to email hidden; JavaScript is required with the subject headline Community Content. If you are sharing a lengthy segment, start the conversation off by introducing yourself to the listeners as well as a reminder of where they are tuning into. “You’re listening to 99.1 WQRT-LP Indianapolis” should be at the intro of your segment.  

We’re seeking content that people can make from the safety of their homes or within safe physical distance of others. We have suggestions for online tools to use for interviews and conversations. This content will also be shared through a variety of online platforms such as Instagram and Facebook to further help alleviate social isolation.

Call for Social Media Visual Art Shows and Performances: Have an idea for a virtual art show or performance? We’re open to supporting your ideas — visual, audio, or video. Please email us at email hidden; JavaScript is required.

Call for Classes through Zoom: Have an idea for a class but need an audience? You can e-mail email hidden; JavaScript is required and you can use our upgraded Zoom account to host your class. Currently, we offer West African Dance and Zumba classes.

Open to anyone: First Friday From Home Art Share: We normally show new art at our spaces each First Friday. Now we’re asking you to show us yours! Whether you made it or bought it, use your phone to share photos and videos with us and others by posting pictures or video on social media and using the hashtag #FirstFridayFromHome and tag Tube Factory artspace. Maybe even consider going live through Instagram, Facebook, or another platform. We will select different people who share their collections to win Normal Coffee gift cards, a ceramic piece from Soyong Kang Partington, and T-shirts from Big Car.

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COVID-19: Staying informed, staying connected, and supporting each other

COVID-19: Staying informed, staying connected, and supporting each other

At Big Car, our first response to a crisis in the community would normally be to open our doors wide — as we did every day — to neighbors and artists to draw strength from each other by being together in a safe and comfortable place. We bring art to people and people to art, first and foremost, to connect citizens of all backgrounds and support communities. We do this to address the challenges of social isolation. And, now, the isolation is imposed on us as a way to stay alive. So the question, today, is what do we do to support people as we make it through this together?

NEW: Check out our call for artists and arts and community partners.

We’re ready to answer this challenge because we are, by design, a flexible and adaptable organization that rapidly responds to changes in our own situation and to changes in life. We grew into a viable nonprofit organization during the financial crisis in the mid-2000s. We’re now a hybrid nonprofit, working both in the arts and community development. This is why our headquarters at Tube Factory is an art museum and community center. And it’s why the South Indianapolis Quality of Life Plan organization (SoIndy), the ALPR affordable housing program for artists, and our art and community radio station, WQRT-FM, all live within Big Car. 

As a nonprofit that started at the same time as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, we’ve always utilized social media to share our work and connect with audiences. So, moving communication to these platforms is natural for us. And our social media is linked in strong ways with our radio station, a very democratic form of communication that covers most of Indianapolis and doesn’t require internet access. Also, we’ve long utilized grassroots communication strategies that blend excellent graphic design and copywriting as well as distribution of posters and flyers around our neighborhood and city.

Our approach has come from considering both history and futurism, from studying the intentional communities of today and utopias of yesteryear. We’ve always considered what our responses would be to a temporary dystopia like the one this pandemic is creating. Our team offers viable and immediate action steps to support the community — neighbors and artists alike — through cultural strategies. Some of this focuses specifically on the southside, an often overlooked and underserved area where we’re based and where three of our lead full-time staff members and the director of SoIndy all live. 

Broadcasting and streaming on WQRT radio: Our citywide FM broadcast radio station, 99.1 WQRT, reaches a strong, diverse cross-section of the community. The station — which also streams online for free — provides an equitable and accessible way for people who may not have internet access or may not be able to leave home to learn about things going on in the community and to enjoy a variety of music (much of it local in partnership with organizations like Musical Family Tree) and programming made in Indianapolis by a wide variety of artists and community leaders. 

Now, we’ve now added public service announcements that include available social service resources all over Indianapolis. We’re airing haiku poems sourced from the community in response to the pandemic and how they are coping. We’ve shared a call for artists, musicians, and community builders – generally, the creative community – to send MP3s for us to edit and air. We have plans for producing and airing community programs, conversations, classes, and meditations that bring together guests on the air from the safety of their homes. These will also be shared through a variety of online platforms such as Instagram and Facebook to further help alleviate social isolation.

Additionally, we’ll offer the opportunity to small businesses affected by the shut down to record one-minute stories about their business, share encouraging messages with one another, and participate in a Listening Booth-style program where people can call in and talk to one of our staff artists. We also plan to offer educational programming where students can learn with their families.

With a potential reach of more than 500,000+ people, we know the free and accessible tool of radio — paired with streaming and podcasting via our website, wqrt.org — will offer listeners of all backgrounds vital information and unique music and other programming to help them feel less alone and stuck. We also know that this platform can allow artists a way to share their work, possibly for pay, at a time when all public venues are closed. 

We’re seeking funds to support the radio station, which is currently operating at a loss. We’re certain to lose our main underwriters — mainly local restaurants, entertainment venues, and retail businesses. Not only do we seek emergency operating support for WQRT, we need funds for expanded staff resources (we employ one part-time staff member currently). And we’d like to have a budget for paying artists to make shows, perform live on air, and contribute in other ways.

Commissioning and regranting to creatives: Many artists and creatives live hand-to-mouth, making ends meet with various gigs throughout the month or by selling their work. Big Car has a long history of successfully regranting to the arts community through Spark Monument Circle where we supported over 200 artists, Art In Odd Places, our work with the City on Lugar Plaza, and through commissioned exhibits and programming at Tube Factory and in partnership with other groups like the LQBTQ+ youth organization, Low Pone

We believe the arts and artists are the heart of communities, provide new perspectives, offer the public a window to the soul. They put their passion and ideals above financial stability. This is why we commission artists for our public creative placemaking programming. And it’s also why we need to protect them in this difficult time. 

We’ve received multiple requests from artists and performers seeking our help, including our own Artist and Public Life Residency program artists living in four houses on the same block as Tube Factory (with five more houses to be filled soon). APLR artists currently renting from us are unable to pay their rent, losing $2,000 in just one weekend due to cancellations. We’ll not be evicting them, or charging late fees. 

We’re seeking additional support to pay artists to use our social media platforms and radio station to help them financially survive during the complete social shutdown of our city. We’d like to share a call for proposals via a simple survey. And we will be and are currently partnering with convening organizations like the Arts Council of Indianapolis (with its #IndyKeepsCreating campaign as a start), Indiana Arts Commission, Indiana Humanities, INHP, and LISC Indianapolis. We’ll also partner with other organizations like The Learning Tree, PATTERN Magazine, Low Pone, and many more arts and neighborhood-focused nonprofits to offer resources.

Door-to-door info and telephone approaches: With about 31% of people on the southside living below the poverty line, we know that many are unlikely to have access to wifi now that the library and Tube Factory have shut down. This means many of our homebound neighbors are now lacking access information and resources and low-income neighbors are lacking information about how to stay safe during the pandemic. This is especially an issue for elderly neighbors who may be living alone.

We’ll partner with SoIndy, Bean Creek Neighborhood Association, Garfield Park Neighborhood Association and other southside neighborhood leadership to create printed door hangers with a list of resources for the homebound. This will also highlight resources we’re offering online and on WQRT. Then, we’ll suit up with protective gear to deliver the information door to door. 

We’re also working with other neighborhoods to gather information on technology that will allow neighbors to connect via phone. This includes both call-in numbers and methods for texting or calling neighbors directly with vital information.

As David Brooks wrote in The New York Times, “Through plague eyes I realize there’s an important distinction between social connection and social solidarity. Social connection means feeling empathetic toward others and being kind to them. That’s fine in normal times. Social solidarity is more tenacious. It’s an active commitment to the common good — the kind of thing needed in times like now.”

And working for the common good — with an eye to a stronger, more socially connected future — is just what we at Big Car are all committed to doing as we make it through this together.

Please let us now how we can support you. And be well.

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Check out media coverage of our artist housing project

We’ve received really excellent media coverage of our new Artist and Public Life Residency program shared as a concept in 2017 and launching in 2019.  Read and watch more here.

national articles

USA Today

Curbed

Washington Post 
Next City
Fast Company
Vice Creators
Modern Cities
Curbed 
The Guardian

local coverage

WRTV6

Indianapolis Business Journal
WISHTV
FOX 59

NUVO

WFYI Live
Indianapolis Star

blogs
Urban Land Institute
IndyHub

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Walk/Bike/Places conference releases call for proposals

Walk/Bike/Places conference releases call for proposals

The premier conference in North America for walking, bicycling, and placemaking professionals from the public and private sectors.

Held every two years, Walk/Bike/Places is a unique conference experience that combines experiential learning from walking and biking the streets of the host city, and learning from its most vibrant places, with nearly 100 expert-led breakout sessions and locally-led workshops. The conference is produced by Project for Public Spaces. 2020’s event will take place in Downtown Indianapolis at the Indiana Convention Center and Big Car is a partner!

The 2020 convening of the Walk/Bike/Places conference will focus on implementation. We seek — with your help — to build a program that will move government from the local to the federal level to build a transportation system which preserves the health and safety of all users, promotes social connections, and reduces the environmental impact of our travel. We invite proposals from the public, private, non-profit/NGO, and academic sectors. We invite ideas large and small. We invite new voices. And once we have our program chosen we will invite 1,500 planners, designers, advocates, and public health professionals to Walk/Bike/Places 2020 to entertain, to inspire, and to challenge ourselves to simply do better. Our time is now.

Please complete your proposal by January 3, 2020 @ 5pm EST.

START YOUR PROPOSAL HERE

FORMATS

We are offering three formats from which to choose from this year: Breakout Presenter, Peer Coach, and Poster Presenter. However a huge change this year is that we are only soliciting proposals for single presenters. Each format is unique so please review the characteristics and expectations of each and then choose the one that’s best for your content.

Breakout Presenter

The breakout is a conference staple and it constitutes the majority of Walk/Bike/Places programming. We expect it will be the most competitive format thus this format requires more of its applicants. Applicants must answer evaluative questions and define learning outcomes for the audience.

In a departure from past conferences the breakout program, tracks, and individual sessions will be assembled by Project for Public Spaces and a series of teams who will oversee each track. As a Breakout Presenter you may become part of a facilitated discussion, you may serve on a panel, you may be asked to deliver a presentation, or depending on your expertise, you may even be asked to lead a field exercise.

Note: Once again, we are only soliciting proposals for single presenters; no teams or pre-formed panels will be accepted.

Peer Coach

Each of us has something to offer our peers. Your knowledge could help our attendees navigate a politicized project, find a design solution for a tricky intersection, access funding for a project, or provide some needed perspective. What we offer depends on who applies, so what’s your Expertise?

Peer Coaches will lead a small group discussion about their topic. There will be no need to prepare a presentation, just come ready with your knowledge, some scratch paper, and business cards. We will provide the eager learners. You can expect to devote about an hour of your time at the conference to being a Peer Coach.‍

Poster Presenter

Some topics are best presented on paper and explained in person. For those reasons this format is a favorite for presenters of technical information, those who desire a more intimate connection with their audience, despisers of PowerPoint, and/or students seeking feedback on research projects.

Successful applicants will be assigned an 8’ x 4’ freestanding display area, a table of same/similar dimension, and be provided a minimum of an hour of display time. Additional details will be conveyed in the presenter welcome kit.

CONFERENCE TRACKS

Our focus on implementation is reflected in the conference tracks: they are simple and practical. A list of keywords, phrases and topics follows each track name to suggest appropriate Content.

  1. Infrastructure – The streets, sidewalks, multi-use trails, and information that moves us. Woonerfs, Shared Spaces, Traffic Calming, Bike Parking, Multi Use Trails, Sidewalks, Streets, Cycle Tracks, Bike Lanes, Advisory Bike Lanes, Rapid Implementation.
  2. Planning – Setting the vision, goals, objectives and process for moving us towards a more just and sustainable society. Zoning, Land Use, Form-Based Code, Data, Modeling, Outreach, Public Engagement, Project Evaluation, Economic Development.
  3. Advocacy – Simply put: getting what we want. Funding, Referendums, Legislation, Public Policy.
  4. Excellence – Building the organizations and building the skills of those who will fiercely defend the public interest. Running for Office, Registering a Non-Profit, Ethics, Professional Responsibility, Strategic Planning, Campaigns, Budgeting, Fundraising.
  5. Health – Creating environments where people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities can lead healthy, happy and productive lives. Active Living, Injury Prevention, Environmental Justice, Education, Mental Well-Being, Social Capital, Friendships, Physical Health, Violence Prevention, Nutrition.
  6. Transit – The management and operation of vehicles and infrastructure for the most efficient movement of people. Micro mobility, Ride Hailing Apps, Bike Share, Transit Oriented Development, Multimodal Hubs, Congestion Pricing, Demand Management, BRT, First/Last Mile.
  7. Place – The streets, corners, buildings, neighborhoods and locations that are special to us, that anchor a community. Placemaking, Tactical Urbanism, Parklets, Public Markets, Downtowns.

We recognize that not every topic is easily fit into a track; for example, Vision Zero, Safe Routes to School, Social Media, Autonomous Vehicles, and Equity straddle multiple tracks. If your topic is not easily categorized, then choose the track that is the closest fit.

RULES FOR APPLICATION

For us to assemble a program which advances the cause of Walking, Biking and Placemaking, we ask that you follow these rules when submitting your application to present:

  1. You may submit up to three proposals — regardless of format.
  2. You may not submit nor will we accept proposals that are obviously commercial or self-promotional. If you wish to advertise then we suggest purchasing exhibit space or sponsoring the event.
  3. You propose, you present. We will not accept proxies or substitutions.
  4. Your content must be available to attendees. Studies, reports, and articles that are behind paywalls must be made available to Walk/Bike/Places attendees.
  5. We want to be a welcoming community where discussion is spirited, humorous, fun, and respectful of differences. We have a responsibility to our community to support diversity and we will make program choices to support that objective.

All presenters are expected to register. We have priced registration to meet nearly every budget, and rates will be announced towards the end of the year. Submission of a proposal is not an obligation to attend Walk/Bike/Places 2020 (but we really hope you come!).

REVIEW PROCESS

Proposals received will be scored by our Program Review Committee. The Committee is composed of your peers in planning, advocacy, health, engineering and placemaking, and drawn from the public, private and non-profit sectors. Each proposal will be evaluated and scored by the criteria indicated above. Presenters will be chosen and tracks assembled to create a program that “gets it built!”.‍

If you have any questions about your proposal, or the application and review process, please reach out to us at: email hidden; JavaScript is required

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APLR Homes Available

APLR Homes Available

Housing applications for artists now live.

Click here to apply

Are you an artist who wants to engage and help shape a community? Located on a block in both the Garfield Park and Bean Creek neighborhoods on the near southside of Indianapolis, the Artist and Public Life Residency (APLR) program is an innovative and experimental approach to supporting artists who use their talents and skills to help drive positive change in the community.

For this program, we view the label of artists to include creatives, makers, and designers. Fields include — and are not limited to — architecture, culinary art, curation, visual art, public art, furniture, fashion, craft, design, film and video, creative writing and journalism, performing arts, music, theater, placemaking, socially engaged art, etc.

The APLR —  taking applications for resident artists now through December 23, 2019 — is a long-term, affordable and community-invested artist home ownership program as part of a community land trust approach.

Applicants will be notified if they moved on as semi-finalists by January 6. Finalists will be selected by mid January. Public information sessions will be at Tube Factory art space December 5th, 6 pm and December 7th, 11 am.

In partnership with Riley Area Development and supported by Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership (INHP), the APLR’s goal is to provide artists enjoyable and equitable home ownership while they work — in part — to collaborate with other neighbors and boost the culture, creativity, diversity, livability, safety, health, and economy of the local and greater community. This is a reboot of the program launched two years ago before pausing to work out various aspects of the program and partnership. So far three families have been placed into the homes.

Through a community-inclusive selection process, artists of all disciplines can apply to be matched with one of five affordable homes and downpayment assistance.

Ultimately, we will be teaming up with resident artists who see their work with the public – and their work for the benefit of the community – as at the core of their practice and production as artists. We are looking for artists who want to make a difference, as artists and neighborhood leaders, and see this work in support of the community as truly part of their art.

The APLR program works as sort of an exchange, with artists who qualify for the program both financially and in terms of their practice as artists co-owning the homes with the partnership — that way only paying a portion of the cost. As in community land trusts, the artist homeowner will purchase a 49% ownership interest in the home costing between  $49,000 and $72,000. The artist home buyer must meet income qualifications. Qualified artist buyers are required to make less than 80% of the average Marion County income, or less than $43,250 per year for single member household. As part of the exchange — which also includes downpayment assistance — the artist residents commit to working for six years in support of the community as part of their practice as artists. 

If the artist should move out in the future, the partnership will buy their 49% share of the house and put it back in the program at the same cost level, ensuring that affordable home ownership sustains. This way, increased property values that might be caused — at least in part — by art-focused community development boosting demand in the neighborhood won’t price out artists on this block currently transforming from mostly vacant to vibrant. The program works as land trust for artist housing. The idea is to keep the houses outside of market forces and maintain an affordable place for artists to be able to be homeowners and leaders living in and supporting the community.

The houses in this program were previously vacant, some for a long time, and no existing residents were displaced. These efforts for APLR are happening in partnership with current residents as a way to work together to further strengthen the neighborhood and keep affordable housing for artists in place. Our partner, South Indianapolis Quality of Life Plan and others are also working on strategies for affordable housing in general in the area. And we are all teaming up on efforts to avoid the displacement of existing residents.

Throughout this process, we’ve researched other initiatives around the country as well as teamed up  with expert volunteer teams — like Ursula David’s Indy Mod Homes and Axis Architecture — to develop this program and renovate five formerly boarded up houses. Indy Mod and Axis adopted one house to transform as a lovely home for artists. These five homes will soon serve as a catalyst for positive activity on a short block that dead ends into an interstate highway that has caused challenges for the neighborhood now anticipating a boost from Indy Go’s Red Line bus rapid transit, opening this summer.

We focus on artists in the APLR program because Big Car Collaborative is an arts organization working in partnership with a nonprofit community development corporation to support the neighborhood where we are based and, with multiple staff members, where we live.

This project is linked to larger efforts on the block funded by a $3 million grant by Lilly Endowment announced in December of 2018. Learn more about that here. Also, this program and process comes — in part — from the research and organizational efforts by Indianapolis-based artist and planner Danicia Monet.

More details:

  • Resident artists will receive research and training support from Big Car staff and others as they will represent our partnership in the community.
  • Artists will open their home and/or grounds for some form of public engagement during neighborhood-wide open house or art walks events – usually on the First Friday of the month.
  • Artists will dedicate 16+ hours per month to work with the public in the community. This includes time on their own public projects, training and meetings, and time supporting other Big Car or neighborhood programs.
  • Artists will have opportunities to participate in Big Car-organized exhibition and collaboration opportunities. We will encourage partnerships between resident artists, visiting artists, other local artists, and our staff artists.
  • Qualifying artists will be selected by a panel of experts on community-focused art and housing (some from other cities) and neighbors. The selected artists will be able to become homeowners while also committing to building participation and strengthening the community through art, along with Big Car, in the South Indianapolis neighborhoods and the greater Indianapolis community. This is an investment by both owners in the homes and community, and a way to keep housing affordable in the neighborhood in the long term.

Additional keys to this project and the future of our Cruft Street micro community:

• We live in the neighborhood, communicate and work with neighbors as neighbors — and welcome everyone

• Our programming is about social cohesiveness first — with art as an avenue to bringing people together

• Physical improvements artists will help build create needed social infrastructure

• We have already created a cluster of positive energy in a small area — one block built around Tube Factory

• We anticipated and support public transit (the nearby Red Line), walkability, and bike access

• We bought these previously vacant properties early before market forces began to influence price

• We are not displacing anyone with this project and are, instead, moving people with low incomes into long-term affordable housing

• We team up with many partners (some covering our gaps in our expertise)

• We aren’t concerned about profit for reinvestment in the next project

• We’re creating an open/porous cooperative cohousing community vs. a closed one that is for members/owners only (includes shared meals)

• We value active public and third spaces and help create them when needed and when invited

• Artists welcome the idea of supporting the community in exchange for affordable housing and studio affordability

• We track data and gather stories, revising and adjusting along the way

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Call for Garfield Park/Bean Creek Artists

Call for Garfield Park/Bean Creek Artists

Calling all Garfield Park and Bean Creek artists!

Set between lush trees and historic homes the Garfield Park neighborhood is a hub to a diverse community of sound, visual and preforming artists.

Localized is a juried exhibition in partnership with The Garfield Park Art Center and The Tube Factory Artspace to highlight artists of various mediums from the Garfield Park/Bean Creek neighborhoods. This exhibition will be on display during December 2019.

Join us at the Tube Factory Artspace on Saturday September 21st from 2-3pm to learn more about how to submit to the show.

Link to submit:
https://forms.gle/voFMFUFUeWXvtwCTA

About Tube Factory:

Tube Factory artspace is a hybrid between a contemporary art museum and community center. It is open six days a week as a public place for culture, community, and creativity and features a contemporary art exhibition space and socially engaged art laboratory. It’s also home base for Big Car Collaborative’s work across Indianapolis and beyond. Tube Factory features rotating commissioned exhibits by international and local artists alike, interactive projects, space to hang out, a reference library and free books for teens and kids to take home, an outdoor gathering space, and more to find by exploring.

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American adaptive reuse art spaces that inspire us

American adaptive reuse art spaces that inspire us

Before renovating our Tube Factory artspace building and as we work on expansion of our second 46,000-square-foot “Big Tube” building on the campus, we have visited many other adaptive reuse art spaces around the United States.

Many of the strategies and approaches have seen have informed and inspired our approach. This post explores these places with links to images (often taken during our research trips). We suggest visiting these art spaces!

 
In the Midwest
MOCAD in Detroit
Signal-Return Press in Detroit (has moved to new location)
Stony Island Art Bank in Chicago
Spaces in Cleveland
Transformer Station in Cleveland

elsewhere in the U.S.
The Momentary in Bentonville, Arkansas
(related but not adaptive-reuse Crystal Bridges in Bentonville)
Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh
Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Tx
Judd Foundation in Marfa, Tx
MoMA PS1 in New York
Various 21c Museum Hotels especially Oklahoma City 
Frist Art Museum in Nashville
RedLine Contemporary Art Center in Denver
Charlotte Street Foundation in Kansas City
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The Joyce Foundation 2019 Creative Placekeeping & Placemaking Summit

The Joyce Foundation 2019 Creative Placekeeping & Placemaking Summit

The Artist as Problem Solver II: Building the Capacity of Artists and Cultural Workers as Civic Leaders

March 21 & 22, 2019 at St. John’s Episcopal Church 2600 Church Ave, Cleveland, Ohio 44113

The Joyce Foundation’s Culture Program — with co-sponsors The Gund Foundation — hosts this event is free open to those actively working or deeply interested in the role of the arts in fostering and preserving equitable communities, neighborhood health and resilience, economic mobility, spatial justice, memory and heritage, and collective civic imagination. In addition to the themes addressed by our roster of national arts leaders, particular attention will be placed on placekeeping and placemaking case studies from Chicago. Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis-St. Paul. 

View and download the full program here

View and download the full speaker bios here

Space is limited and available on a first-come basis. Register via Eventbrite to confirm your attendance. 

Opening Keynote & Reception:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2019-joyce-awards-convening-cleveland-opening-keynote-reception-tickets-56137644205

Full-Day Panels & Workshops:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2019-joyce-awards-convening-cleveland-full-day-panels-workshops-tickets-56137746511

Video from the 2018 summit:

 

Check out photos from the 2018 summit here

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Call For Proposals

Call For Proposals

We are accepting proposals through March 31 from artists for our exhibition spaces at Listen Hear, the Guichelaar Gallery in our residency house next door to Tube Factory, and the Jeremy Efroymson Gallery in Tube Factory. All of these locations are found on the same block in the Garfield Park neighborhood just south of downtown Indianapolis and participate in our First Friday opening night each month.

About Listen Hear gallery: Selected by curator Oreo Jones, preference is given to sound art proposals (750 square feet). Must have sound component to be considered for this space. 

About Jeremy Efroymson Gallery: Selected by the Big Car curatorial team, this space is ideal for emerging contemporary art solo or group exhibitions (1390 square feet and a video room). 

About the Guichelaar Gallery: Selected by the Big Car curatorial team, preference is given to small painting/photography shows, room size installation, solo and group proposals (486 square feet).

Create your own user feedback survey

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2018 year in review + look ahead

2018 year in review + look ahead

This year — which ended with exciting news of a $3 million grant from Lilly Endowment for our work on the near southside (details here) — was one full of learning and sharing, bringing people together, and sparking creativity for thousands of people through our multidisciplinary art and cultural community development projects and programs.

As we wrap up 2018, our staff, board, and 200-plus participating artists thank our neighbors, partners, and funders for their ongoing support of our work bringing people together with social infrastructure that helps make places inclusive, equitable, and comfortable. This work — always a community collaboration — is about fostering opportunities for people of all ages and backgrounds to get creative, experience art, connect with each other, and build community.

Here’s a roundup of our work from 2018 with a look ahead to 2019.

Tube Factory commissioned exhibitions

We began the 2018 exhibition season with a building-wide exhibition fully supported by Efroymson Family Fund that featured commissioned work linked to a residency by Greek artist, Christos Koutsouras. Land Art (Telling Trees)was guest curated by Jeremy Efroymson with support from Tube Factory director of programs and exhibitions, Shauta Marsh. It opened in May with more than 700 people attending the First Friday evening that also featured an outdoor artisan market, live music, food trucks, and a new exhibition at our Listen Hear location (this Big Car campus-wide setup delighted guests each First Friday in 2018, with an indoor market in winter months). Visitors from around the city and neighborhood alike enjoyed Koutsouras’s extensive show of photography, drawings, installation, and video that remained up in the main gallery, upstairs and downstairs video rooms, and the larger, downstairs Efroymson Gallery until July. The exhibition also tied Samos and Indianapolis together with an installation made from trees harvested by Indy Urban Hardwood.

In the summer of 2018, we focused much of our collective staff energy on Juan William Chávez’s Indianapolis Bee Sanctuary and Mesa Hive exhibit and public art project in the main gallery and video room from August through October. This multi-faceted project involved much research, partnerships, and a long-term maintenance plan. Chávez teamed up with our staff artists and curator, Bee Public (local beekeeping company), Solful Gardens (urban gardening program), and young people from TeenWorks on the construction of the outdoor beer sanctuary — a sculpture with both ecological and social aspects. TeenWorks is a six-week summer program of employment and college readiness for high school seniors. The TeenWorks youth helped build and experienced several educational workshops that focus on ecology, plant biology, landscape design, beekeeping, and entrepreneurship. Public programming related to bees launched with the exhibition and programming continues over the next five years. On an ongoing basis, the public is invited to get up close to the bees in the Indianapolis Bee Sanctuary.

Chávez’s exhibit, Mesa Hive, was a multimedia installation that highlighted the process and construction of the Indianapolis Bee Sanctuary and tied it to his Peruvian heritage. Chávez presented the installation on a large Mylar survival blanket with carefully arranged objects and artifacts created and harvested during the construction process. These objects are juxtaposed with new paintings made by Chávez during the residency. The survival blanket is inspired by Chávez’s heritage. It references Mesa, a multicolored bundle containing sacred objects used for healing in Andean shamanic rituals associated with a Huaca monument or natural location representing something revered. Chávez lived in the residency house for eight weeks while working, each day, with the team to build the bee sanctuary and work on new pieces — including drawings and paintings of mesa blankets — for his exhibition in the front room of the residency house. He moved into the house two days after Koutsouras ended his visit. During the exhibit, which stayed up through late October, Chávez connected with community members and presented an artist talk, lunch, and tour of the project.

In November, we brought to the main gallery No USA Return, from Mexico City-based artist, Laura Ortiz Vega. We commissioned eight thread paintings, The Great Eight, and an installation, The Offering/La Ofrenda. For The Great Eight, Vega started with the now images of the eight border wall samples that President Donald Trump visited in 2017 while they were being tested along the actual border between San Diego and Tijuana. After listening to the speeches Trump has given about the wall and reading his tweets on the subject, Vega extracted the eight adjectives used most to describe the border wall project: great, biggest, impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful, and incredible. Seizing the chance to subvert public perception of these messages, Vega presented the adjectives as graffiti on the border wall sample images she had painted, turning each section of wall into a billboard that advertised its own alleged attributes in hyperbolic fashion.

The Offering/La Ofrendais an altar made of plastic water jugs Vega inscribed with encouraging messages. The piece references volunteers who leave similar jugs filled with water in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona to help prevent illegal immigrants from dying of dehydration during the desert trek to the United States. Vega’s intention is for The Offering/La Ofrendato honor those that died attempting the crossing and those that made it but will potentially face lifelong separation from their relatives due to immigration policies. The show opened with more than 500 attendees at Tube Factory the same night that Trump was campaigning for Todd Young in the midterms elections at Southport High School located two miles from Tube Factory. In his speech there, he again promoted his proposed border wall as he continued to talk about the “threat” of migrants moving toward the border. Vega led an artist talk on the December First Friday, walking visitors through the exhibition and sharing in both Spanish and English.

Other than the three months of Land Art (Telling Trees) that filled all of the Tube Factory spaces, we featured a new exhibition each month in the lower level Jeremy Efroymson Gallery. With one exhibit — the Post-It Show in partnership with Sugar Space in January — featuring more than 100 local artists, and another — Flava Fresh curated by D. Del Reverda-Jennings — including 50 artists, and six other shows including 20 more artists, we were able to feature more than 170 local artists in this space alone in 2018. Some other highlights included: the University of Indianapolis Social Practice Thesis exhibit, Danicia Monet‘s Blue Blackshow of photos and performance art focused on African-American body image, the Freaks and Geekscollaboration between illustrator Aaron Scamihorm and writer Jason Roemer, and Absence Presence, photographs by Jedediah Johnson, Tiffany Pierce and Amanda Taves that also explored body image and the human physique.

Listen Hear and WQRT FM

We continued to bring experimental live sound art, and cultural conversations to both our Listen Hear sound art space and WQRT, our radio station at 99.1 on the FM dial. This work includes things like a live 24-hour noise-a-thon, performances by touring and Indianapolis-based sound artists heard on air also attended by audience members at our Listen Hear gallery space, and monthly exhibitions with 21 local and regional artists in 2018 — many featuring sound-oriented works. WQRT also hosts a variety of regular and one-off music, and cultural talk programs (20-plus different ones airing in 2018  — ranging from local rock and hip-hop to country, jazz, and classical music to art and community talk to film reviews) created and hosted by community members and Big Car staff artists.

Also at Listen Hear, we commissioned a bathroom installation by Danielle Joy Graves. At the onset of the #metoo movement Marsh began looking at Indianapolis-based sex-positive, body-positive feminist artists to support. This led to the commissioned bathroom installation, Virgin Mary Vaginathat includes carved foam, paint, LED light strips, and mirrors that allow visitors to take selfies in this symbolic heaven and hell.

Engaging public programming and public art

This side of our work brought together thousands of people across Indiana with arts-based social experiences. We created a nearly month-long pop-up public place at the Indiana State Fair and worked with the community to paint a collaborative mural there. We partnered with the Indianapolis Parks Foundation and Indy Parks on programming in city parks including a weekly beer garden with public programming at Garfield Park. Our work at Indianapolis City Market’s plazas continued and expanded with support from Southwest Airlines.

We activated the urban green space outside of Needler’s Market in the Lockerbie neighborhood with seating, games, and cultural programming — including live music, a collaborative writing project, and three night markets featuring local artisans. Our work in Fort Wayne continued as part of the community engagement team with the Electric Works project redeveloping a massive former General Electric factory campus. We also helped launch similar work in Indianapolis as a program partner with Waterside at the former GM Stamping plant. And we started work with the Jewish Federation of Greater Indianapolis to support planning for rethinking the campus that includes the Jewish Community Center.

We also completed our Ready for the Red Line project in partnership with Transit Drives Indy and the Arts Council of Indianapolis that brought awareness to upcoming location locations for new bus rapid transit stations on the southside through pop-up programs like an outdoor movie screening, interactive art experiences, art fair, and a mini festival. We followed this with public-art kiosks sharing information and gathering input at three locations. Additionally, we worked with Rolls Royce employees to paint a mural designed by Big Car creative director Andy Fry that will go up under the tracks on Meridian Street in 2019. And we worked with visitors at the Spark Festival in Fishers to paint a collaborative mural based on artwork by a Fishers high school student that now adorns a building in the city’s downtown park.

Two of our staff artists, Carlie Foreman and one-year artist in residence, Conner Green, teamed up to create a new exhibit on the Wagon of Wonders, our mobile art museum. Their piece presents nine color-coded cassette tape recorders the public can use to record and make sound art pieces sourced from the environment — categorized by people, water, and flora. Additionally, we commissioned self-taught artist Michael Jordan to paint a series of 20 small oil-paint portraits of Indianapolis artists and creative thinkers throughout history. Visitors can take the portraits down from the display wall (where they hang with velcro) and read biographies on the back. The Wagon visited many schools, community locations, city and state parks (including a weekend at Turkey Run State Park funded by an Indiana Arts Commission grant), and stayed at the Indiana State Fair most of August.

Sharing our work, connecting with the world

In 2018, staff members participated in several conferences — invited to present as speakers at placemaking, art, and city-centric conferences. We also took art scouting and connecting trips to other cities with different artists from our team — often linking these to conference participation. Midwest locations included Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Chicago, and St. Louis. Three of us also visited artist-run spaces and contemporary art museums and galleries in San Francisco and New Orleans (the trip to New Orleans funded by Southwest Airlines to attend a conference there and share about our work). Marsh and Walker traveled to Germany and Belgium — with support from the German government — to attend the IMPACT conference, a weeklong gathering of artists and thinkers from around the world (only one other of the 30 there resides in the U.S.). During this two-week trip in early November, Walker and Marsh also visited many contemporary art spaces — most of them very unique adaptive reuse projects — in Berlin, Essen (the location of the conference), Düsseldorf, and Brussels.

In 2018 Big Car staff also pursued partnerships in the Midwest and abroad and were able to experience citywide contemporary art exhibitions: FRONT International in Cleveland and Open Spaces in Kansas City. We made great connections with peer organizations in these Midwest peer cities where we will further collaborate and exchange ideas, art, and artists.

In April of 2018, Marsh accompanied a version of the Big-Car-commissioned Mari Evans exhibit to the Virginia Commonwealth University Gallery in Qatar. She curated the original project at Tube Factory with Carl Pope and Evans in 2016. In Qatar, Marsh helped with the exhibition install, met with undergrad and grad students and faculty — including making studio visits, connected with staff from museums there, led private tours of the exhibit, and conducted a public lecture before the opening.

Looking ahead to 2019

With Tube Factory commissioned exhibitions — which stay up for three months — on Feb. 1, Chicago-based photographer and sociologist David Shalliol opened a photo and video exhibit based on four years of research centered around the Garfield Park and Bean Creek neighborhoods where Tube Factory is located. He also interviewed and photographed residents of the neighborhood, with a focus on Bean Creek — located east of Shelby Street adjacent to the Garfield Park neighborhood and including Tube Factory. He will eventually create more with this research. Yvette Mayorga will be next in the main gallery at Tube Factory in May. She employs confection, industrial materials, and the American board game Candy Land as a conceptual framework to juxtapose the borderlands of the U.S. and Mexico, contrasting the immigrant’s utopian visions of the American Dream with living shrines to real life individuals, some of whom have died at the border. This is followed by New York-based Saya Woolfalk’s commissioned exhibit is next in August of 2019. Woolfalk and Marsh share an interest in artificial intelligence, utopian ideas, and how ritual is and will be integrated with technology. Woolfalk has items in production and has created a video that will be projected onto the south wall of the main gallery over painted walls. Kipp Normand: Snake Oil is scheduled for November. The exhibit by this Indianapolis-based artist will explore advertising and pharmaceuticals as metaphors for religion and mass hysteria through a narrative-based immersive and kinetic installation.

On the public programming side, we will be returning to the Indiana State Fair and Lockerbie, plan to continue working with City Market and Indy Parks, and will expand our efforts in partnership with the Jewish Federation of Greater Indianapolis and Waterside/GM Stamping Plant. We’ll also work on community engagement efforts with Electric Works in Fort Wayne and the South Indianapolis Quality of Life Plan (SoIndy) in our home area. Big Car is the convening organization and fiscal agent for SoIndy.

Our biggest effort in 2019 will be a major expansion of our Garfield Park Creative Community/Cruft Street Commons work. With the support of the $3 million Lilly Endowment grant and with the resolution of details with our partnership with Riley Area Development, we will see renovation work finished on five houses that will be sold at affordable prices to artists and five more renovated as affordable rentals houses for artists and neighborhood leaders. Two other buildings — our current residency house/Guichelaar Gallery next to Tube Factory and a small former church on Cruft Street — will serve as program spaces, with the house serving as a gallery and hosting short- and longer-term artists in residence.

We’ll make progress on the larger factory building behind Tube Factory and continue work on the commons green space and sculpture garden (home of our community garden, the Indianapolis Bee Sanctuary and, soon, the Chicken Chapel of Love). Likewise, we’ll add a community-focused commercial kitchen to the campus and a coffee shop at Tube Factory.

Please tune in (at 99.1), drop by, and think of us when considering sponsorships or nonprofit donations. We’re thriving and growing but need your help to continue doing so. Here’s to an exciting 2019!