Big Car

Betsy Stirratt: Unearthing
2023-01-06 18:00 - 2023-03-19 18:00 (America/Indiana/Indianapolis) | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
In Unearthing, Stirratt explores how natural and cultural objects are presented in collections and museum settings, and how we preserve, classify, and display them.
From Stirratt: “I have visited many natural history, herbaria and medical museums in Europe and the US with the aim of understanding their objectives, collecting impulses, and labelling practices. With similar intent, I visited several regional historical sites and collections, including the Workingmen’s Institute in New Harmony, the Indiana University Paleontology Collection, and Angel Mounds. The resulting photographs and objects demonstrate the sometimes underestimated importance of local and regional history within the broader museum sphere.
The items within a museum or private collection are accumulated with a view to imposing order, classifying nature, preserving memory, or in some instances to signaling status. Items may be preserved for their cultural and historical importance, or for their aesthetic qualities. For some, collecting serves as a means of accumulating knowledge, or as inspiration for their imagination and memories. For me, it’s the embedded history of objects and places, and how history and folklore can inform our relationship with the world.
More specifically, I’m interested in the idea of both documenting collected items and using this documenting collected items and using the documentation process to create new artifacts: a coupling of curation and creation, as it were. Influenced by my many years as a gallery director and curator, I think about the way that art and objects are selected and placed in juxtaposition with each other and how they are subsequently perceived by viewers. It is important to acknowledge that the viewer’s experience is changed by the inclusion or exclusion of objects and the information that accompanies them.
The videos in the exhibit were made using three artists books that contain words and pictures about collections I have visited: specifically botany, anatomy and zoological collections. Each of the videos features the turning pages of the books in the Collected Series, interspersed with video and audio clips that I gathered from museum visits, educational films and from life.
Additionally, alongside the pieces inspired by museum collections and artifacts in this installation, I am including materials I have collected (e.g., a 19th c. herbarium, Victorian bird taxidermy, amateur butterfly collections) relating to my interest in history, natural history and the ways objects are preserved and presented within a curated setting. These items were gathered because almost all were created by an amateur who had some specific interest in the subject that he/she was preserving.
Collections and museums inform us about the world we live in, record the past and provide material memory across generations. Unearthing is an attempt to impose order on an unordered world, drawing upon hazy memory, inexact connections, and interpreted histories. The process of unearthing objects, both physically and metaphorically, can broaden our experience of the world, stimulating imagination and wonder about what we have around us.”
About the artist
Betsy Stirratt’s creative practice focuses on themes about nature, collections and the environment. She is the Founding Director of the Grunwald Gallery of Art at Indiana University Bloomington where she has curated exhibitions and published catalogs since 1987. Exhibiting her own work widely since 1983, solo exhibitions include La Maladie at The Mütter Museum in Philadelphia and the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago and Veiled Taxonomies at the Center for Book Arts in New York. Her work has been included in group exhibits at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Indianapolis Museum of Art, and White Columns and Art in General in New York among others. She is the recipient of a Visual Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
VISIT US
Wednesday -Friday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturday & Sunday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Tube is also open until 10 p.m. each First Friday.
Closed Holidays
Made possible by The Arts Council of Indianapolis, The City of Indianapolis and the Christel DeHaan Family Foundation.

Words & Music: Maurice Broaddus
2023-01-14 17:00 - 18:00 | 99.1 WQRT, United States
Join Oreo Jones as he interviews Indianapolis-based Maurice Broaddus –a writer, community organizer and teacher. His work has appeared in magazines like Lightspeed Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Asimov’s, Magazine of F&SF, and Uncanny Magazine, with some of his stories having been collected in The Voices of Martyrs.

Broaddus’s books include the urban fantasy trilogy, The Knights of Breton Court, the steampunk works, Buffalo Soldier and Pimp My Airship, and the middle grade detective novels, The Usual Suspects and Unfadeable. His project, Sorcerers, is being adapted as a television show for AMC. As an editor, he’s worked on Dark Faith, Fireside Magazine, and Apex Magazine.

Words & Music is made possible by a grant from Indiana Humanities . And is a project of Big Car Collaborative , the nonprofit behind WQRT.
Learn more at MauriceBroaddus.com.
Words & Music is made possible by a grant from Indiana Humanities . And is a project of Big Car Collaborative , the nonprofit behind WQRT.

Mvhayv Radio Marathon
2023-01-28 12:00 - 20:00 | 99.1 WQRT, United States
Mvhayv Radio is a language and cultural preservation project by multi-disciplinary artist, Elisa Harkins (Cherokee/Muscogee) based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
All day we will air episodes 1-10 to celebrate kicking off a new season starting Feb 4 with episode 11.
Episode 1 – Can you dance to this?
Episode 2 – Songs to find your radical lover to
Episode 3 – TikTok
Episode 4 – All Indigenous
Episode 5 – Africa
Episode 6 – Muscogee (Creek) & Seminole Hymns
Episode 7 – All Indigenous spoken word, noise, and moccasin gaze.
Episode 8 – Music to bake cookies to.
Episode 9 – All Indigenous poems and music.
Episode 10 – All Indigenous poems and music.
Harkins work is concerned with translation, language preservation, and Indigenous musicology. Harkins uses the Cherokee and Mvskoke languages, electronic music, sculpture, and the body as her tools. Harkins received a BA from Columbia College, Chicago and an MFA from CALARTS. She has since continued her education at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She has exhibited her work at Crystal Bridges, documenta 14, The Hammer Museum, The Heard Museum, and Vancouver Art Gallery. She created an online Indigenous concert series called 6 Moons, and published a CD of Creek/Seminole Hymns. She will open an exhibit at Tube Factory artspace July 5-October 19, 2024.
She is also part of Radio III / ᎦᏬᏂᏍᎩ a performance group that features music and choreography by Harkins. With support from PICA and Western Front, songs from the performance have been collected into a limited edition double-LP which can be found on Harkins’ Bandcamp. Harkins resides on the Muscogee (Creek) Reservation and is an enrolled member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.
This program is made possible by National Endowment for the Arts and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Nathaniel Russell: HERE IT IS IT ALWAYS IS
2023-02-03 18:00 - 2023-03-19 18:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
For “HERE IT IS IT ALWAYS IS,” Russell shares new paintings, objects, and situations made improvisationally with recycled, found and reused materials. A visual artist, illustrator, and musician based in Indianapolis who has shown his work around the world, Russell utilized the Efroymson Gallery at Tube Factory during the month of January to build his work for this exhibition. With “HERE IT IS IT ALWAYS IS,” Russell continues to explore themes of hope, anxiety, compassion and our place in an ever-expanding universe.

Nathaniel Russell was born and raised in Indiana. After college, he spent several years in the San Francisco Bay Area making posters, record covers, and woodcuts. His work can be seen around the world in traditional galleries and informal spaces. Russell has also created many book and album cover designs, illustrations for the New York Times, and a viral series of fake flier projects.

Two of Russell’s murals are found on Big Car’s campus — You are Here on the Listen Hear building and Totally Pencil on Tube Factory. Russell also previously made colorful, oversized plywood cutouts for Big Car’s parking lot garden at Service Center outside of Lafayette Square Mall and shared a solo show, Thing, at Big Car Gallery in its early days in Fountain Square.

Opening receptions: Feb 3 & Mar 3, 6-10 pm in our Jeremy D. Efroymson Gallery.

VISIT US
Wednesday -Friday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturday & Sunday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Tube is also open until 10 p.m. each First Friday.
Closed Holidays

Made possible by the Arts Council of Indianapolis, The City of Indianapolis and The Efroymson Family Fund.

African Dance with Uzuri
2023-02-08 19:30 - 21:00, 2023-06-07 19:30 - 21:00, 2023-06-14 19:30 - 21:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
Join Uzuri Asad, artist in Big Car’s Public Life Residency, for a dose of culture, self-care, and community as we explore rhythms from West Africa and other parts of the Diaspora. Give your body and soul a moment to reflect and progress all at once, meet Asad on the floor!

First Friday Night Market
2023-03-03 18:00 - 22:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
Join us again for this upcoming First Friday for a wonderful evening in Garfield Park. We are celebrating local artists, musicians, food trucks and vendors by featuring them in our night market.
Come check out our creative endeavors here around Cruft Street, where you will have the opportunity to purchase local goods from amazing artists and food vendors here at the Tube.
During the winter months, the Night Market is held inside Tube Factory artspace. In the fall, spring, and summer months, vending is located outside.
If you are a local artist or maker, please contact email hidden; JavaScript is required for more information.

Jason Gray: Cthutopia
2023-04-07 18:00 - 2023-05-21 15:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
“I remember sitting in church one Sunday near Easter, trying to pay attention to the sermon but failing. I was six or seven, maybe. My mind wandered as I looked around the sanctuary. I started to think about these two hallways that led away from the main room. The one to the right was familiar to me; the choir room was down there and I found myself there often, waiting for my grandparents to hang up their robes after service. The hallway to the left was a mystery. I had never been down it, nor seen many people go in or come out. This particular Sunday I started to imagine what was down there. I pictured the hall itself to be similar to the other side, with white walls and a white door. Opening this white door would lead you somewhere else, though. It led to a cave of sorts, with gray stone walls and a dusty floor: Jesus’ tomb. Jesus was in there too, frozen in carbonite like Han Solo.

As we get older, there seems to be less time for our imaginations to wander. We get bogged down with responsibilities and thoughts about what we need to do next. Our sense of wonder diminishes as we learn more about the world; we know the chances of discovering monsters or hidden worlds are slim. A lucky few get to live in their imagination, like writers and filmmakers, but most of us are stuck, grounded by real life.

The philosopher Michael Foucault used the term “heterotopia” to describe places that deviated from the normal world. A greek word meaning “other place”, a heterotopia is neither a utopia nor a dystopia, but something in between, a parallel world that is contrary to expected society and that can, at times, be disturbing. Foucault cited examples such as prisons, hospitals, and religious sanctuaries, where one is expected to perform certain rituals to enter. These spaces are an accepted part of society, places we deem necessary in order to exclude those that can disrupt our attempt at a utopia. What if there were places hidden from us that go beyond societal expectations and exist outside of our rules of physics and nature as we understand it?

In this body of work, I am exploring the dream that there are still places and things we have not discovered, things we may not even comprehend. Inside of familiar volumes such as instrument cases and terrariums, I am creating spaces that give a glimpse of some other world, somewhere weird and wrong. This is Cthutopia.”

About the artist
Jason Gray is a furniture maker residing in Indianapolis. Wood is the medium most often used, but he also dabbles in slip cast ceramics and looks for inspiration in found objects. He earned a BFA at Herron School of Art and an MFA at The University of Wisconsin – Madison.
Gray is the Lead Builder at Big Car Collaborative. He is the designer behind campus projects such as The Chicken Chapel of Love, The Chicken Palace, and Wandering Grove.

This exhibit is made possible by The Arts Council of Indianapolis, The City of Indianapolis and Allen Whitehill Clowes Foundation.

Jeremy Efroymson Gallery
Opening events April 7, 6-10pm & May 5, 6-10pm

Women's Assembly for Production & Sound
2023-05-12 19:00 - 22:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
The event will begin with a Q&A panel moderated by DJ Space Bunz. Our panelists include, Lex the curator of No Rap on Sunday, DJ Gabby Luv, DJ Jess Little Town, DJ Annie D, and DJ Non-Compliant. All of these women are leaders in the local music scene in Indianapolis and seasoned in their craft. Following the Q&A, each panelist will break off into their own station and participants will be able to visit each station and get their hands on gear! The idea is to lower the barrier of entry for DJing and allow participants to experience all different types of DJing gear including CDJ’s, Turtables, Controllers, and production software. Participants will have an opportunity to learn from our panelists and network. Following the break out, there will be a quick Back-To-Back DJing session from our panel of DJ’s and guests will be encouraged to dance!
The event will be broadcast on Listen Hear Radio WQRT 99.1 and is in collaboration with Tube Factory Art Space, Red Bull, Deckademics, Girls Rock Indianapolis and Indy.fm.
The event is 18+ and beverages will be available for purchase for the 21+ crowd.
We are excited for you to join us!
Below you will find more information about our moderator and each of our panelists!
DJ Space Bunz @brianachele: DJ Space Bunz is 5 years in the craft. She currently spins an open music format at various clubs and events in the city & is a part of a local DJ collective, Club Plex. She believes that music has the power & potential to transform the energetic field of any environment.
DJ Little Town @djlittletown: Indianapolis born with dual citizenship belonging to Brazil, Little Town is an eclectic music selector that has been DJing for nearly a decade around the world. She is highly adaptive to her audience; playing multi-genre dance parties, Top-40 venues across the city, underground techno clubs, all vinyl DJ nights, and private events.
DJ Annie D @anniedulhanty: A true open format DJ, Annie D has cultivated a brand based on her love for all music genres, her western and edgy style, and her motivation and passion to maintain the party at any venue. Her ability to weave through and touch all genres of music during her party driven sets has molded her club/event driven career. DJ Annie D has residencies at Metro Nite Club and Tini on Mass Ave, Burn by Rocky Patel, and Union 50 to name a few – and has played events including Bi/Pan Pride and Chicken and Beer Fest.
DJ Gabby Love @djgabbylove: DJ Gabby Love is Indianapolis-based & has become one of the most sought after DJs for Clubs and Events in the city. She has played club gigs & festivals in NYC, London (UK), Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Louisville, Denver. She has DJ’d prestigious events for clients such as Gatorade, Sak’s 5th Ave., Heineken, Red Bull, and the Indiana Pacers. Her passion & knowledge of the craft can be heard & felt in her sets, filled with seamless blends & creative lyric/sample associations that get the party going!
Lex @ibetuwanta_lexus: As a girl growing up, I would sing in church & a part of choirs. Singing never was my true passion, although I loved music, bringing ppl together has always been my strongest gift so that’s why I started No Rap On Sunday! In the beginning it was just a hashtag I used on Twitter! Every Sunday I would do the hashtag & ask ppl what they were listening to! That started in 2015 & I slowly turned it into an event that I host on the last Sunday of the month during the summer! It was organic & something that I dreamt about constantly, so to see it come into fruition is a blessing.
DJ Non-Compliant @_noncompliant_: Raised in small town Indiana on a musical diet of 80s synth pop and punk rock, Noncompliant soon found barnyard raves and warehouse techno parties and (as DJ Shiva) quickly became a fixture of the fabled 90s Midwest USA rave scene.
Two decades and a name change later, she is at the top of her techno game. Mixmag named her one of 2017’s Top 20 Breakthrough DJs. She owned a packed and sweaty Boiler Room during Movement Detroit, turned in mindblowing mixes for Slam Radio, Discwoman, and Resident Advisor, and quaked some of the world’s most respected dance floors like Smartbar Chicago, Amsterdam’s DeSchool, Concrete in Paris, and Berlin’s legendary Berghain. Her festival appearances include Unsound, Red Bull Music Festival Paris, Movement Detroit, and Whole United Queer Festival.
As a producer, her releases and remixes on labels like Valence, Argot, Flash, and Dark Entries have pounded sound systems worldwide, with her tune “Women’s Work” landing on Fiedel’s official Berghain 08 mix and on his label Fiedeltwo.

African Dance with Uzuri
2023-05-17 19:30 - 21:00, 2023-05-31 19:00 - 21:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
Join Uzuri Asad, artist in Big Car’s Public Life Residency, for a dose of culture, self-care, and community as we explore rhythms from West Africa and other parts of the Diaspora. Give your body and soul a moment to reflect and progress all at once, meet Asad on the floor!
$10

Super Sunday Showdown 2.0
2023-05-21 14:00 - 20:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
Super Sunday Showdown Returns!!
Join us for this music, food and fun event organized by Clint Breeze and hosted by Tenna.

Food Trucks: That Vegan Joint and Weiner Dreams

Set times:
2:30-3:00 – Emma Hall
3:15-3:45 – Breeze Funk and Joel
4-4:30 – Gritty and Craftsman
4:45- 5:30 – Joshua Powell
5:45 – 6:15 – Mandog DJ Set
6:30-7:00 – KIDDO
7:15-8 – Drayco

Nasreen Khan: Cic·a·trix
2023-06-02 08:00 - 2023-07-23 15:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
The narrative of femininity is pain.
Cicatrix: the scar of a healed wound. In botany, cicatrix refers to the keloid mark left on a tree after a piece of it has been removed. In this body of work, I am exploring the personal maternal scar of being taken away from the only real parental figure I had until that point in life, the complex scars of colonialism and immigration, and the physical scars of my own body.

I spent the first part of my life in Senegal, West Africa. I was raised by my nanny, a Senegalese woman named Saly. In Senegal there is a practice called diamou, or gum tattooing and burning. A hot needle is repeatedly poked into a woman’s gums. Then a mixture of burnt oil and shea butter is rubbed into the wounds to darken the space around the teeth. This is supposed to make the woman more beautiful, but also to train her to tolerate pain. When I was 9, Sali began tattooing my gums to blacken them. She was never able to finish. I spent the second half of my life in Indonesia. Saly died the year after we left Africa.

The architect and urban planner, Le Corbusier, wrote about humanity as born in a state of insufficiency, therefore needing “auxiliary organs.” For Le Corbusier, our built environments, including building architecture, become prosthetic extensions of our insufficient human bodies. His thoughts form the basis for contemporary prosthetic theory, often cited in the world of AI and tech innovation. For example, a computer mouse pad becomes an extension of our internal understanding of reality, as it is the “limb” we use to create changes in our virtual realities.

Immigration is both an amputation and a taking on of prosthesis through cultural assimilation in a new built environment. The relationships we leave behind are an extension of ourselves. Their separation leaves a wound, then a scab, then a callous on which the new ones rest like a prosthetic limb.

I draw on concepts of scarification and prosthesis in this body of work. The collections of dots and lines that form many of the backgrounds are translated from traditional African scarification patterns. I choose to work burning on wood, mirroring the tattoos on my gums. The tree limbs and bark are functionally akin to scarred skin and flesh.

The cultural narrative of femininity I was taught as a child was –to be woman was to endure pain–and to be a good woman, was to endure pain quietly. Once I immigrated to America, the messaging about what it meant to be a woman changed only slightly. I am in pain. The pain I experience is often dismissed, by the immigration and medical systems, by male partners, by respectability culture.These works are manifestations of the silent scaring and re-wounding that many women experience. They challenge and subvert these narratives through their size and emotionality. The use of a once living medium is a metaphor for womanhood and immigration.
Run your fingers on the raised welts in the wood. Touch pain.

About the Artist
Nasreen Khan (she/her) is a writer, visual artist, teacher, and mother. She grew up in West Africa and Indonesia and has recently made a home in Indianapolis. Her teaching and artistic practices, rooted in questions of equity and earth-based spirituality, grapple with questions of belonging; celebrate cultural margins; and confront colonization, racism, and misogyny.
IG: @heyitsnasreen
Website: https://nasreen-khan.com/

June 2-July 23
Jeremy D. Efroymson Gallery
Wednesday -Friday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturday & Sunday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Tube is also open until 10 p.m. each First Friday.
Closed Holidays
Made possible by The Arts Council of Indianapolis, The City of Indianapolis, Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation and more.

Haykidd &Thee Black Card-Hey Black Kidd
2023-06-02 18:00 - 2023-07-23 18:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
“Hey Black Kidd” is a collaborative body of work created by painter, Haykidd (Greg Rose) and mixed media artist, Thee Black Card (Sarah Jene). The exhibit is a celebration of self, full realization and acknowledgement of who you are, where you are and what you have– from their perspectives.

Pairing Thee Black Card’s rich cultural mixed media work and Haykidd’s imaginative approach to storytelling, these artists tell a story of resilience, joy and virtue in 14 pieces.

The exhibit is inspired by this poem written by Useni Perkins:
“Hey Black Child
Do you know who you are
Who you really are
Do you know you can be
What you want to be
If you try to be
What you can be
Hey black child
Do you know where you are going
Where you’re really going
Do you know you can learn
What you want to learn
What you can learn
Hey Black child
Do you know you are strong
I mean really strong
Do you know you can do
What you want to do
If you try to do
What you can do
Hey Black child
Be what you can do
Learn what you must learn
Do what you can do
And tomorrow your nation
Will be what you want it to be”

This exhibit opens in our Listen Hear Gallery located at 2625 Shelby St.

Boo! A knitting/graffiti project with Mary Jo Bayliss
2023-06-03 13:00 - 15:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
A free gathering where knitting and graffiti collide! Simultaneously inspired by traditional knitting and graffiti, this ever-evolving piece combines fiber adjacent activities, coloring sheets derived from graffiti and knitting motifs, and opportunities for participants to share their creative path stories.
You are invited to come join the fun, because without YOU, Boo, this project can’t happen.
About the artist
Mary Jo Bayliss specializes in creating environments that help people feel at ease using space, light and color to achieve these goals.

Yeabsera Tabb Gallery Talk
2023-06-17 14:00 - 15:30 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
Join Yeabsera Tabb as she gives an in-depth tour of her works in her exhibit, “Tezeta.” Tabb is an interdisciplinary visual artist with a focus in printmaking and textiles. Her work explores the intersectionalities and liminal space contained within one’s personal identity.
As an artist, Yeabsera often struggles to reconcile her pain, bewilderment, and anger with societal expectations to create beauty. Acknowledging anger, joy, and resistance, her work exists in a complicated middle ground, invoking the recognition and appreciation of disparate feelings and experiences.
After graduating with degrees in both Design for Social Impact and Fine Arts, Yeabsera held multiple solo and group shows in Indianapolis including a group show at Newfields. Additionally, she was one of 10 Black woman artists named as an Emerging Visionary Artist by Shea Moisture.

Andrea Jandernoa- Power Plant Grant Juror Artist Talk
2023-06-25 13:00 - 15:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
Learn about artist Andrea Jandernoa, a juror for our 2023 Power Plant Grant. Jandernoa is an award-winning artist and educator who specializes in community-based arts programming. She holds an MA in Philosophy and an MFA in Integrative Studio Practice from Herron School of Art & Design. Jandernoa experiments with intentional processes, materials, and forms, in order to discover metaphors that can be applied to social contexts or to challenge inequitable power structures. This results in a highly collaborative and interdisciplinary art practice. Jandernoa also maintains a studio space at the Circle City Industrial Complex where she paints and exhibits oil paintings.

About the The Power Plant Grant
Power Plant Grants support — on an annual basis — visual artists who live, work, or run spaces in Indianapolis with project grants of $10,000. Applications for this round are due by July 10, 2023.

Each year — based on selections by an independent panel — 6 individual artists or teams will receive awards of $10,000.

Eligible applicants are visual and or multidisciplinary artists who create original work in painting, drawing, sculpture, book art, ceramics, fiber, printmaking, digital and media works, film, video, photography, performance art, sound art, social practice and or hybrid or interdisciplinary practice of any or all of the above.

Artists must be over 21 at the time of the application, and may not be full-time students.

Employees or board members (or immediate family members of employees or board members) of Big Car Collaborative are not eligible for this opportunity.
Teams, partnerships, and unincorporated individuals running spaces are eligible. Nonprofit organizations are not.

Eligible projects are ones that can be primarily supported by grant funds. Much larger projects that would require far more funding are not eligible.
Previous Power Plant Grant recipients awarded in the previous year are not eligible to apply for this current round.

How it works
Apply by July 10, 2023. A panel of four judges, three Indiana-based and one out-of-state, will award six artists, artist teams, or artist-run space project grants of $10,000 — with a total of $60,000 granted in 2023.
Timeline:
Friday, May 5 – Application opens
Monday, June 5, 7-8 pm — Virtual information session.
Monday, June 26, 7-8 pm — Information session (in-person)
Monday, July 10 – Applications close online, at 11.59 PM EST
Friday, August 11 – All applications notified if they will proceed to the final round
Saturday, August 26, 9:30 am — 6pm — Artists’ presentations at Selection Panel meeting in Indianapolis*
Monday, August 28 – Award recipients notified
Monday, September 18 – Public Announcement of 2023-24 Awards

Marianne Glick: What Lies Beneath
2023-07-07 18:00 - 2023-07-21 15:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
“All the paintings in this exhibit have multiple layers. The initial impression of the painting from a distance will change as you get closer-you will see more depth and dimension -things you maybe didn’t notice at first. I think this is a reflection of life. Often we make judgements based on first impressions, but once we get closer to someone, we realize that there is much more…beneath the surface.”– Marianne Glick

About the artist
Looking for a way to positively approach the winter months after a career in corporate training, Marianne began painting in September of 2005. Her love of gardening inspired many of her early paintings. Most of her recent work is abstract. She often uses more than one medium in her work, combining watercolor, acrylic and some collage to create pieces that reflect her exuberant nature. “I have worked in a variety of media and am now focusing on acrylics. I enjoy the use of rich colors and textures in my work. Exploring the interplay between transparent & opaque, warm & cool, brush work and pouring fascinates me. Most recently, I have been delving deeper by creating multiple layers and sanding back to reveal parts of early layers in the final painting.”

Marianne’s paintings have been accepted in juried competitions sponsored by the Hoosier Salon, California Art Day, Indianapolis Art Center, International Society of Acrylic Painters, International Society of Experimental Artists, Midwest Abstract National Exhibit, Watercolor Society of Indiana, and Women’s’ Works . Marianne likes to donate paintings to benefit some of her favorite non-profit organizations. To date she has donated paintings or profits from paintings to Women’s Fund, Dress for Success, Community Health Network Foundation, Joy’s House, Girls, Inc., Planned Parenthood, Indianapolis Symphony, Indianapolis Library and United Way.
Marianne now serves on the board of directors for the Glick Family Foundation, the Gene Glick Company, the Glick Housing Foundation, ASCEND, Central Indiana Community Foundation, Ivy Tech Community College, RISE Indy, TeenWorks and United Way of Central Indiana.
Her personal mission is to ignite, inspire and direct energy for positive action. Her paintings allow her to colorfully express her mission and hopefully bring joy to those who view them.

Brian DePauli: Not Sorry We're Closed
2023-08-04 18:00 - 2023-09-24 15:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
Not Sorry We’re Closed is an exhibition inspired by and questions American society’s live-to-work mentality, and is comprised primarily of hyper-realistic oil paintings. DePauli’s pieces preserve and draw attention to objects and scenes from the lighter side of daily life: a worn bicycle seat, a chimney on the grill in summer, a homemade skate ramp in a fenced-in backyard, a ballcap lying in the garden proclaiming “RETIRED, No Phone! No Fax! No Stress! No Worries!” The surface meaning of these items and scenes are emphasized as a lifestyle to aspire to rather than objects to contemplate.
“I am concerned with the cultural and environmental effects of America’s obsession with work, as well as the physical and mental health ramifications,” says DePauli. “In 1930, distinguished economist John Maynard Keynes published a short essay, ‘Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren,’ where, among other ideas, he states that ‘by 2030 the standard of living would be dramatically higher; people, liberated from want (and without the desire to consume for the sake of consumption), would work no more than fifteen hours a week, devoting the rest of their time to leisure and culture.’ My work envisions a world where his prediction has come true.”
About the artist
Brian DePauli received his MA in visual art from Fontbonne University. His work has been exhibited widely throughout the St. Louis area at galleries including Fort Gondo, Boots Contemporary Art, and White Flag Projects, as well as nationally at Around the Coyote in Chicago, IL, and The Berkeley Art Center in Berkeley, CA. DePauli’s works have been featured in several publications and platforms, such as New American Paintings and BOOOOOOOM. He has participated in residencies at The Luminary in St. Louis, MO, and Paul Art Space in Florissant, MO. Brian DePauli lives and works in Saint Louis.
This exhibit is made possible by the Indy Arts Council, The City of Indianapolis and Allen Whitehill Clowes Foundation.

Tube Factory artspace
Jeremy D Efroymson Gallery
VISIT US
Wednesday -Friday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturday & Sunday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Tube is also open until 10 p.m. each First Friday.
Closed Holidays
Big Car Collaborative brings art to people and people to art, sparking creativity in lives to support communities. As an artist-run nonprofit organization, we utilize tools of culture and creativity to build community and social cohesion — connecting people as a way to boost quality of life. We support our community by supporting artists.
Much of our work happens on a single block where we own or co-own more than 20 properties — including a long-term affordable housing program for artists and Tube Factory — a contemporary art museum with a cafe, studios, and community space. At our campus of adaptive reuse buildings and public greenspace, we host community and cultural programs to promote social connectivity, cooperation, and creativity.
We also facilitate people-focused placemaking and place keeping projects across the city and beyond through Spark. Tune in to our experimental, community-focused radio station, WQRT 99.1 FM — also streaming at wqrt.org.

FreeTown Village: The Rev. Samuel P. Strong
2023-08-17 16:00 - 18:00 | 1 Monument Circle, South Facing Steps, United States
In the “Day in the Life of Rev. Samuel P. Strong”, you’ll listen to the moving story of Rev. Strong’s kidnapping into slavery and his daring escape to freedom on the Underground Railroad. Share his encounters with legendary abolitionist Harriet Tubman.

Freetown Village is a living history museum with the mission to educate the public about African American lives, arts, and culture in Indiana through living history, exhibits, allied programs, and the collection and preservation of artifacts.

Who? SPARK on the Circle is an ongoing partnership between Big Car Collaborative, Downtown Indy, City of Indianapolis Department of Metropolitan Development, the Capital Improvement Board, and the Indiana War Memorials Commission.

What? SPARK brings a free, fun, playful, welcoming, and art-filled park to the heart of Indianapolis. Here on Monument Circle, you’ll find comfortable places to sit in the shade, free games to play like ping pong and chess, a cafe serving food and drink, art experiences, and special offerings like live, local music. Big Car Collaborative approaches its aspects of SPARK on the Circle as a site and community specific public art project.

When? Visitors can enjoy SPARK on the Circle from 11 a.m. until dusk each day until November 3.

Where? New for 2023, the SPARK park utilizes the brick streets between the monument and the sidewalk on the southwest quadrant between Market Street on the west side of the monument and South Meridian. The southwest is in front of Emmis and next to South Bend Chocolate Company.

Lunch at Lockerbie Marketplace
2023-09-07 11:30 - 13:30 | Needler’s Market, 320 N New Jersey, Indianapolis, IN, 46204, United States
Join us for live music by Wick, comfort dishes by Taste of Manila, and Live music. Games like foosball, ping pong, chess & checkers, and giant Jenga are also available for additional entertainment.
All events are free at 320 N New Jersey Street in the greenspace right off the Cultural Trail.

About Wick
John Wick and Andrew Gustin met at IU Bloomington in 2006 and quickly bonded over similar music tastes. In 2007 they moved to Indianapolis and started an Indie Rock band called The Dwellers. The Dwellers were prolific and inspired by the DIY spirit and self released over 10 albums. In 2013 The Dwellers final album ‘Less is More’ was released by Jon Roger’s local label HIFR.
In 2021 John and Andrew reunited to make an album of songs John wrote in college. They started a new band called Wick and enlisted Dan Johnson to play drums and had John’s siblings Katie Jones and Ian Wick contribute with backing vocals on the album. Angel Baby is the single from the Wick album called “Forest” which will come out later in the year.
The band was joined by former Dwellers bassist Eric Brock to fill out the lineup.
About the project
A free gathering where knitting and graffiti collide! Simultaneously inspired by traditional knitting and graffiti, this ever-evolving piece combines fiber adjacent activities, coloring sheets derived from graffiti and knitting motifs, and opportunities for participants to share their creative path stories.
You are invited to come join the fun, because without YOU, Boo, this project can’t happen. Mary Jo Bayliss specializes in creating environments that help people feel at ease using space, light and color to achieve these goals.

Her Addiction-An Empty Place At The Table: Book reading with Mary Sexon
2023-09-24 14:30 - 16:30 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
Join us and author Mary Sexson for a reading of her new book of poetry “Her Addiction, An Empty Place at the Table.”

“The book is a collection of poems that came to be written in response to the family problem of addiction. I feel that the poems are a chronicle of the fear, shame, and anger we went through as a family, during the years of our daughter’s active drug use and addiction. I wrote these poems over the course of almost 10 years, as a way to cope with the pain of it, the absolute fear of it, which I processed and filtered through the lenses of these words. My husband and I were also taking care of our daughter’s young son during this time, because she was unable to care for him. I knew we were not alone, that the dark secret of addiction was present within many families. I wanted this book to be some sort of acknowledgement that yes, this happened to us. Maybe it happened to you. So we need to talk about it openly, to tell the truth about it, to let go of the secrets and the shame. Writing these poems helped to free me from those feelings, and ultimately helped to heal me from within. I want people to have a healing process reading these poems, even just to know that they’re not alone. And I want to acknowledge that the incredible road to recovery my daughter has journeyed on is also a part of that healing.”–Mary Sexson

Mary Sexson is author of the award-winning book, 103 in the Light, Selected Poems 1996-2000 (Restoration Press), and co-author of Company of Women, New and Selected Poems (Chatter House Press). Her poetry has appeared in Tipton Poetry Journal, Laureate, Hoosier Lit, Flying Island, New Verse News, Grasslands Review, and Last Stanza Poetry Journal, among others. She has recent work in Reflections on Little Eagle Creek, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Last Stanza Poetry Journal Issue #7. Finishing Line Press will publish her manuscript, Her Addiction, An Empty Place at the Table, in 2023. She has three Pushcart Prize nominations. Sexson’s poetry is part of the INverse Poetry Archives for Hoosier Poets.

“This is a poetry collection that will break your heart, but also make you grateful you read it. Mary Sexson tells the story of her daughter’s addiction(s) honestly, sometimes painfully, with grace and love. The first time I read the powerful and moving manuscript I sensed it could be a challenge for her to find a publisher. As the author of a book of poems about surviving abuse by a priest, however, I also had faith that some wise publisher would admire a poet who confronts difficult topics and stories like the one that Mary Sexson has the courage to tell about herself, her family, and their struggles. Sometimes she is patient, sometimes frustrated, impatient, exhausted, angry, but always she is honest. Remarkably, her love of, and loyalty to, her undependable daughter is everywhere evident.
The most moving part of the story is her and her husband’s having to raise their grandson, a toddler, while his mother, in her thirties, is in and out of treatment, somewhere in an alley looking for a fix, causing a traffic accident, or temporarily back home before relapsing again. Sexson makes it clear that for everyone in the family there is “a heavy toll to pay.” At first, the grandson is unaware of what’s going on, but eventually his grandmother observes him playing “The Dinosaur Game,” with “a family /of triceratops,” then realizes, “I buy him the dinosaurs / he configures / into the family he does not have.” Later the little boy asks his grandmother a series of questions, including: “Why is [my] mommy not here?” On his bedside table, a “Big Ironman” stands, whose job is “to keep him safe / until her return.”
It’s no surprise that the grandparents find it difficult to share this painful story with others, which makes the telling of so much truth in these eloquent poems noteworthy. “The price we all pay / for this level of intimacy is staggering,” Sexson admits. “I ache for monotony…the comfort of it.” In “Map of My Fears,” she says: “Your addiction draws lines / on my face, deep and distinct.” She becomes “tired of writing about [her] in my head.” Finally, the grandparents start to “whisper” the story of their daughter’s addiction, telling others the “facts / bare and ugly as they were.”
In the last poem, “The Words,” Sexson reveals all that she would like to be able to tell her daughter on her 37th birthday. The last message is this: “Tell her / that you learn the truth about love / every time you are with her.” The poet is too wise to tell us, directly, what that truth is – the poems in this outstanding collection deserving of a wide audience have already made us see and feel it. Mary Sexson’s exquisite artistry makes forgetting her family story impossible.”
–Norbert Krapf, Former Indiana Poet Laureate

“I’ve always appreciated the variety Mary Sexson brings to her writing. In the past she’s given us humor, other times practical advice, and often wise words. But more than anything she gives us herself. Mary is never afraid of letting us see the most sensitive moments of her life and now is no exception. She welcomes us into her private world where we can see “The indigo sky, color of my heart / today, blue tattooed across it. In this new book Her Addiction, An Empty Place at the Table, Mary has taken us into the nightmare of her daughter’s drug addiction. With these riveting poems we feel the weaving together of love and pain as she navigates the all too often calamities families suffer as the result of addiction. At the same time we feel her palpable longing for the coming of relentlessly gained joy in her daughter’s recovery.”
–Joyce Brinkman, Indiana Poet Laureate 2002-2008

NIGHTJAR, a poetry series with open mic
2023-11-15 19:00 - 21:00 | IN
Write a poem based on the prompt below and arrive early to sign up for our open mic!
NIGHTJAR creates an inclusive space for all by bringing together spoken-word performers and page-based poets writing in narrative, lyric, and experimental forms. Every third Wednesday, C.S. Carrier and Michelle Niemann host a reading and invite audience members to share their own poetic responses.
November’s featured poet is Katy Didden.
Didden’s most recent book, Ore Choir: The Lava on Iceland, is a collaboration with illustrator Kevin Tsing and was published by Tupelo Press in 2022. Her first book, The Glacier’s Wake (2013), won the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize from Pleiades Press. She is an associate professor of English at Ball State University.
NIGHTJAR open mic guidelines:
317 words is the maximum length for open mic contributions. Creative takes on the prompt are fine, but this must be new writing in response to the prompt!
Prompt for open mic:
Write from the point of view of a seemingly inanimate or non-sentient object, as Katy Didden does in her book, Ore Choir. This can take the form of an interview: ask an object or natural feature a question. For example, you could pick up a fallen leaf or a stone and ask it, “What color is the sky?” or “Where will I find home?” or “How would you define love?” or “What will end war?”

Artist Talk with Giselle Trujillio featuring artists from Indy Latina Artists
2024-03-17 18:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
Join Giselle Trujillo at the Tube Factory artspace for an artist talk about her latest art installation Hogar Dulce Hogar. In this event Giselle will talk about her start in her arts career, the materials used in her arts practice and the importance of the collaborative process to create her work. In this event members of the Indy Latina Artists will join Giselle Trujillo in a small panel conversation about the experience of being members of a latina women’s group and working to elevate and support each other.
Hogar Dulce Hogar (Home Sweet Home) is an immersive experience that transports visitors to a timeless realm and invites them to engage with the artwork and touch, feel, and even dance with the pieces. Trujillo’ screen paintings contemplate making a home where you are — without losing the richness of your background. The house symbolize the beauty of diverse experiences and merge to form a tapestry of identity. This echoes the importance of preserving cultural roots while embracing new surroundings. Trujillo also offers subtle commentary on emigration and the essence of “home.”
A notable facet of this installation is Trujillo’s inclusion of works by other members of the Indy Latina Artists group. They include: Mayra Espino, Ana Escalante, Vanessa Monfreda, Mary Mindiola, Rosa Maria Díes, Frances Ruiz, and Nettie Viera. Their pieces further enrich the overarching narrative and cultural tapestry woven by Trujillo’s vision.

Rachel Leah Cohn: Mem
2024-04-05 - 2024-06-24 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
To walk through the installation, Mem, is to enter a myth. A kaleidoscope of the divine feminine, there are fountains of light centering the space on the painting of Miriam– one of the seven major prophetesses of Israel. Miriam carried a rock from which flowed an abundant amount of water during the 40 years Jewish people searched for a place to live in the desert. Access to this water made survival of her people possible. Smaller paintings surround her, as well as ritual objects such as papercuts and amulets.The title of Cohn’s show, Mem, is a Hebrew letter that has multiple significant meanings in the work. “I recently took a class about the complexity, flexibility, and magic within a single Hebrew letter. When searching for a title, this one letter encapsulates many ideas I have considered while working in the studio. The shape can be seen as a wave and stands for the word for water, mayim,’ and Miriam and mikveh, a ritual bath used for transformation,” Cohn said. “Mem is related to feminine energy, motherhood, and the womb, symbolizing protection, safety, and giving to others.
“The letter also represents the number 40, a mystical number that speaks to the cyclic nature of time, moving from the past to the future. It is the time necessary for something to ripen and come to fruition, which I relate to both the creative process and this moment for all of us, which felt like an unmoored time of wandering and isolation, but also rebuilding. For me, it is an optimistic title, a link between the world we see and the hidden alternatives. It is a hope for connection and transformation for the world, seen through the lens of my experiences and the character of Miriam.
”The exhibit is also a reflection of these experiences living life and traveling around the world to practice art as someone with Jewish heritage. Cohn has led an extraordinary life as an artist: traveling, teaching, living and learning in places like Qatar, Denmark, China, and others.“The show is really about me thinking through my cultural heritage and my connection to Judaism, which is something that has always been a part of my life, but I think has been increasingly for-fronted by myself, but also by others particularly while living in Qatar, and some of the experiences that I had there that are both positive and negative,” said Cohn, now based in Indianapolis. “It felt impossible for me to talk about my own culture with my students. Even though expressing my heritage wasn’t always something that was super important to me, I think the experience of working with them on representing their culture — and feeling like I needed to hide my own — made me think more about the valuing of sharing my experiences more directly.”
Cohn utilizes several different 2-D and 3-D artforms to create the exhibit, although her background is originally in painting. The forms include — but are not limited to — sculpture, painting and light manipulation. These artforms express a myriad of connecting themes and ideas within the exhibition.“I have been researching the traditional craft of papercutting and am pulling out the shapes and symbols that I’m interested in and then converting them into these laser-cut objects that I’m painting on top of,” said Cohn, who also works as the Foundations Coordinator and an Assistant Professor in Ball State University’s School of Art. “And then that’s within the idea of a fountain — which is ultimately the form of this project — that has to do with Miriam from the Torah and the well, bringing water out of the desert to survive.
”The water of this fountain is external, but also internal. Cohn enjoys finding ways to use the materials she has at-hand to make works of art, channeling inner resilience from her ancestors. And, sometimes being resourceful means finding new peers to collaborate with, wherever she is. Some of her notable works include Hot Pot Sauna Cart (2016) which was made for the Bi-City Biennale for Urbanism and Architecture in Shenzhen, China; Lantern (Abu Nakhla Mirage) (2017), made in the desert in Qatar as an experimentation with light and location; and The Thunder, Perfect Mind (2021), an exploration of light and themes in Judaism. Cohn said although she has an eclectic-to-the-eye portfolio, all of her works have connections to her upcoming exhibit.
“I think my practice — and adapting to what is there — has been a theme of my life,” Cohn said. “When I look at my work over time, I’m finding different ways to talk about the same things.”Tube Factory artspace Chief Curator Shauta Marsh met Cohn when she was a juror at Ball State in 2019. Marsh had traveled to Qatar with Tube Factory’s Mari Evans exhibit. And Cohn and Marsh talked about the otherness they’d each experienced in both the Middle East and the Midwest.“I don’t have a strong sense of identity. So often I work with artists who do,” says Marsh. “Their work processes and relates stories tied to identity that are in jeopardy of being lost. My style as a curator is not an expert but an explorer. The exhibits at Tube Factory are an exploration with both the artist and the audience. I asked Cohn to use her work to explore her identity.”
As a multi-racial curator, Marsh’s practice has centered around identity and exploration of the meaning of culture. And Cohn’s exhibition continues this path.“After thousands of years — humans are still so threatened by each other’s appearance, by what each other speaks and believes,” says Marsh. “But we know that people are more open to art than each other. My hope is that people will see the work and the story of it — and hopefully we can all work on feeling less othered, less fearful of each other.”
About the artist:
Rachel’s work is concerned with themes of communication, mythology and rituals. Projects often attempt to give a physical form to something that is ephemeral, through painting, sculpture and installation. Recently, she lived in the desert where she was building lamps simulating mirages as an analog for memory and loss. Lately her research has been focused on Jewish mysticism and protective magic. Rachel exhibits her work nationally and internationally, including ACRE Gallery (Chicago, IL), Satellite Art Fair (Miami, FL), Terrain Biennial (Springfield, IL), Massey University (New Zealand), Qatar Museums (Qatar), the Istanbul Design Biennial (Türkiye) and Aterlierhaus Salzamt (Austria). She has attended many artist residency programs, including Vermont Studio Center (VT), Signal Culture (NY), Otis College of Art and Design (CA) and the Fire Station (Qatar). She holds a BFA in Painting from Rhode Island School of Design, an MFA in Painting from Virginia Commonwealth University and is currently Foundations Coordinator and Assistant Professor of Art for the School of Art at Ball State University in Muncie, IN.

Curator- Shauta Marsh
This exhibition is made possible thanks to the support of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Ball State University’s Aspire Program, Efroymson Family Fund, Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Arts Council of Indianapolis and City of Indianapolis, and the Indiana Arts Commission.
About Tube Factory: Tube Factory is a 12,000 square foot museum space curated based upon the themes of community, place, memory and mythology. They commission local, regional, national and international contemporary visual and musical artists, borrow artifact-based exhibits and create community-sourced exhibits. A previously vacant former manufacturing building, it is now a thoughtfully renovated home base for non-profit art organization Big Car Collaborative’s work as well as partnership-based community meetings and cultural events.
For more about Cohn: Check out her website at rachelleahcohn.com and on Instagram @rachelleahc

NIGHTJAR: Samantha Fain
2024-05-15 18:00 - 21:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
Doors at 6 pm, reading at 7 pm
Samantha (Sam) Fain is a Best-of-the-Net and Pushcart-nominated poet from Indiana. Her debut full-length collection, Are You There, releases April 25, 2024 with Bad Betty Press. She co-edited Kiss Your Darlings: A Taylor Swift Anthology with Olney Magazine in 2022. Sam’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Indianapolis Review, A Flame Called Indiana: An Anthology of Contemporary Hoosier Writing, SWWIM, Peach Mag, 8 Poems, and Non.Plus Lit. Sam loves her family and friends, bad jokes, pop culture, the em dash, and vinyl records, deeply and in no particular order.
Open mic prompt: Write a poem inspired by your favorite song, celebrity, internet meme, or tweet. (317 words max!)
Creative takes on the prompt are fine, but challenge yourself to write something new in response to the prompt!
NIGHTJAR creates an inclusive space for all by bringing together spoken-word performers and page-based poets writing in narrative, lyric, and experimental forms. Every third Wednesday, C.S. Carrier and Michelle Niemann host a reading and invite audience members to share their own poetic responses.
—

Community Sound lab 1: Listening and Recording
2024-05-18 09:00 - 12:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
Sound artists Rob Funkhouser and Landon Caldwell will start with a basic overview of intentional listening and field recording, and then lead participants on a sound walk through Garfield Park where everyone will get a chance to record sounds that they find to be interesting. For the second half of the workshop, there will be an opportunity for hands-on play with a modular synthesizer, as well as lessons on how to handle files, and prepare them to be used in your own personal projects.

We encourage people to come to either or both of these workshops. All ages and, all skill levels are welcome, this will be a family-friendly activity.

Elisa Harkins: Ekvnv (Land), the Sacred Mother from Which We Came
2024-07-12 18:00 - 2024-10-20 15:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
With this exhibit, Elisa Harkins looks at land in two different ways: a path toward healing due to the desecration of burial mounds in New Harmony, Indiana and how the Land Back movement addresses climate change. Harkins, a multi-disciplinary artist based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Tube Factory curator Shauta Marsh researched and worked on this exhibit for five years as part of Big Car Collaborative’s decade-long research project, Social Alchemy, that explores utopia and dystopia with an emphasis on the southern Indiana town of New Harmony that was twice the site of utopian experiments.
In the Main Gallery, Harkins draws attention to settler desecration of Indigenous mounds in the unmarked “Harmonist Cemetery” in New Harmony. When the Harmonists purchased the land in the early 1800s, they dug up the Indigenous burial mounds, collecting what they considered interesting items for their Cabinet of Curiosities. They then buried their dead over the native people’s remains. When the Harmonists sold the town to industrialist Robert Owen for his rationalist utopian attempt, the Harmonists took apart their church and used the brick to enclose the mounds with a wall. Today, the burial mounds are not acknowledged on signage for the cemetery.
Harkins brings light to this history and offers healing through the Spirit Houses. These are structures built that provide a protective shelter over the grave of their deceased relative. Harkins could not build them in the “Harmonist Cemetery.” So the photographic wall mural and Spirit Houses in the Main Gallery serve as a temporary monument to the native people buried there.
Through the 24 photographs on the wall surrounding the Spirit Houses,(also known as Grave Houses) Harkins tells the story of the mounds in New Harmony to demonstrate not only settler violence against Indigenous land and bodies but also the presence of multiple tribes at sacred burial sites across time. In examining multiple histories of mounds, Harkins interrogates whether Indigenous lands belong to one people alone, And her investigation prompts viewers to examine their own ties to land through time — in their lost ancestral cultures, as well as in contemporary society.
The Tear Dress on the north wall of the gallery is one Harkins wears in many photos and in her work in the video room. Cherokee women traditionally wore this dress in the Southeast in the early 1800s. Indian Removal began to take place during this time period in Indiana (land of the Indians). This is also around the time Harmonists sought to build a sort of religious utopia in the town they named New Harmony.
In the video room, Harkins shares a piece on the 200-year-old song,“Hesaketv Meset Likes or The One Who Gives us Breath.” Though the singing takes place in the present, Harkins seeks to move the audience through time, preserving culture by bringing this new knowledge of ourselves to the forefront.
Leading by example with her works, Harkins uses her Indigenous body as an extension of Ekvnv, the mother from which she came. This embodies critical reflection on deep human connections to ancestral lands across time and place. Her cultural references to ancient mounds with intersectional tribal histories — as well as contemporary tribally-specific structures such as Spirit Houses — probe the meanings of “Indigenous” identity and question whether individual tribal nations will participate in intersectional freedom for all Indigenous peoples.
In the Jeremy Efroymson Gallery, Elisa Harkins shares images, sound, and sculpture that invoke definitions of tribal sovereignty — centering land and its protection. Amid a contemporary Indigenous landscape in which tribal activities vary between cultural revitalization efforts and extractive practices at times complicit with capitalist structures, Harkins calls for land protection above all. This shows viewers that the return of Indigenous land protection practices, along with language and cultural revitalization, are inevitable outcomes on Turtle Island (some Indigenous American tribes refer to North America as Turtle Island).
Harkins often encounters tornado shelters for sale alongside the roads in Oklahoma. While dangerous tornadoes traditionally occur in the summer months, recent years have seen an alarming rise in winter tornadoes. By using the image of these Tornado Shelters, she aims to raise awareness about the increasing destruction and loss of life caused by climate change. The shelters, placed in the ground or Ekvnv, serve as a metaphor for the Muscogee origin story, symbolizing their emergence from the earth at the beginning of their civilization.
The light sculptures are in English, Cherokee, and Muscogee words:
ᎠᏴᏫᏯ ᎤᏤᎵᎪᎯ ᎦᏓ ᏤᏙᎢ
Este Cate Ekvnv Okharoces
You Are on Indian Land
The music playing in the Jeremy Efroymson Gallery, honors communities destroyed and lives lost through human created climate change. Harkins, in collaboration with Mark Kuykendall, composed this piece for the tornado shelter sculpture to serve as a poignant tribute to the lives lost, communities disrupted, and environmental imbalances exacerbated by human negligence.
“Land Back means all land back,” said Harkins, who sees Indigenous political projects such as language revitalization as, most of all, an empowering force for protecting Ekvnv (Land), the Sacred Mother from which we came. In Harkins’ works, she calls for definitions of tribal sovereignty which center land protection over individual political claims to place. She intervenes in narratives of singular or strongest connections of tribal claims to mounds in favor of historical narratives where tribal interrelations connect more peoples to more lands for the purpose of building solidarities of responsibility and care for Indigenous land.
In Ekvnv, Harkins calls for universal participation in and attention to the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous hands, inviting viewers to reckon with the power imbalances that continue between settler colonial structures and Indigenous historical worlds. To Harkins, sovereignty includes care for all–from health care to land protection that reaches worldwide, just as the Sacred Mother receives care from all.
The exhibition is made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Efroymson Family Fund, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and a printing partnership with Aurora PhotoCenter.

The artist wishes to thank:
Ian Byers-Gamber
Mark Kuykendall
Don Tiger
Brose Partington
About Harkins
Elisa Harkins is a Native American (Cherokee/Muscogee) artist, singer, electronic music composer, and curator based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her work is concerned with translation, language preservation, and Indigenous musicology. Harkins uses the Cherokee and Mvskoke languages, electronic music, sculpture, and the body as her tools. She is the first person to sing a contemporary song in the Cherokee language. Harkins received a BA from Columbia College, Chicago, and an MFA from CalArts. She has since continued her education at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She has exhibited her work at Crystal Bridges, documenta 14, The Hammer Museum, The Heard Museum, and MoMA.
In 2020, she created the Indigenous concert series 6 Moons and published a CD of Muscogee/Seminole Hymns. She is also the DJ of Mvhayv (ma-hi-ya) Radio, an Indigenous radio show on 99.1FM in Indianapolis, IN. Radio III / ᎦᏬᏂᏍᎩ ᏦᎢ (ga-wo-ni-s-gi tso-i) is a dance performance that features music and choreography by Harkins. With support from PICA and Western Front, songs from the performance have been collected into a double LP, which can be found on Harkins’ Bandcamp. Harkins resides on the Muscogee Reservation and is an enrolled member of the Muscogee Nation.
About Tube Factory artspace: Tube Factory is a contemporary art campus and community center. There are four galleries on the campus, two are commissioning galleries. Admission is free. It’s also home base for Big Car Collaborative’s work across Indianapolis and beyond. Tube Factory features rotating exhibits, interactive projects, community space, a reference library, an outdoor gathering space, and much more to find through exploring. Tube Factory is an independent, noncommercial, nonprofit public place. Big Car Collaborative brings art to people and people to art, sparking creativity in lives to support communities. As an artist-run nonprofit organization, we utilize tools of culture and creativity to build community and social cohesion — connecting people as a way to boost quality of life. We support our community by supporting artists.
Much of our work happens on a single block where we own or co-own more than 20 properties — including a long-term affordable housing program for artists and Tube Factory — a contemporary art museum with a cafe, studios, and community space. At our campus of adaptive reuse buildings and public greenspace, we host community and cultural programs to promote social connectivity, cooperation, and creativity.
We also facilitate people-focused placemaking and place keeping projects across the city and beyond through Spark. Tune in to our experimental, community-focused radio station, WQRT 99.1 FM — also streaming at wqrt.org.
About Social Alchemy:With this multifaceted, multiyear project, Indianapolis-based arts organization Big Car Collaborative — with our partners, the University of Southern Indiana, Historic New Harmony, the New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art and others –– have created a series of radio shows, exhibits, and conversations exploring, learning, and sharing how utopia has informed places and pursuits over time.
Conceived by Big Car co-founders Shauta Marsh and Jim Walker and artist and philanthropist Jeremy Efroymson, Social Alchemy explores historical and contemporary examples of utopian experiments, fictional utopias and dystopias, and social and cooperative-living design projects (linking back to our affordable artist housing program on our block in Indianapolis). Through a variety of public programs — first made possible with support from Indiana Humanities and Efroymson Family Fund — it offers a deeper understanding of the relationship between the built environment and social good. We all grapple with divides in society and real-life examples of dystopia (shootings, mass incarceration, ecological degradation) and utopia (experiments such as co-living communities that make people demonstrably happier). This project is about exploring historical and contemporary real-world examples of utopian experiments and social design projects as well as theoretical and fictional utopias and dystopias. Our goal is for the impact of Social Alchemy to be a deeper understanding — via history, literature, and the philosophy of art, design, and architecture — of the relationship between the built environment and social good.
About Indiana and Tribal Land (from the Indiana.Gov website)
There are two tribes that have land in Indiana. However there are many other tribal members of other federally recognized tribes that live in Indiana, approximately, 25,000.
The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi receive a small portion of their land back from their removal in Indiana. The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi is a federally recognized tribe. It is one of 573 federally recognized tribes in the United States. The Bureau of Indian Affairs contacted Chairman John Warren to state that their tribe, Pokagon Band of Potawatomi had been approved on November 18, 2016 to receive 166 acres of land in trust in South Bend, Indiana. The tribe successfully put a few housing units and tribal government buildings to assist their tribal members living in Indiana. It also built a 175,000 square foot and 1,800 Class II gaming devices, four restaurants, a player’s lounge, a coffee shop, two bars, a retail outlet and approximately 4,500 parking spaces including an enclosed parking structure. For more information, visit: http://www.pokagon.com/government/indiana-land-restoration
The second tribe that has land in Indiana is the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. The tribe was given land to put a Cultural Extension Office for their tribal members living in Indiana to attend specific gatherings, ceremonies and education events at this office located in Fort Wayne, Indiana. For more information, visit: http://miamination.com/thpo
Please note that many other tribal members from other federally recognized tribes living in Indiana such as Apache, Cherokee, Navajo, Comanche, Lakota Sioux, etc.

Levitt VIBE Indianapolis Music Series Concert - September 1st
2024-09-01 12:00 - 15:00 | 2432 Conservatory Dr., 2432 Conservatory Dr, Indianapolis, Indiana, 46203
Big Car Collaborative, Arte Mexicano en Indiana, and our partners are excited to be part of a national program of the Los Angeles-based Levitt Foundation to bring FREE, family, friendly, live concerts to Garfield Park in Fall 2024 — and continuing in 2025 — as part of the new Levitt VIBE Indianapolis series! To learn more about the Levitt Foundation, head over to their website, levitt.org.

Where: The lawn behind the Garfield Park Art Center, on the near southside of Indianapolis. 2432 Conservatory Dr., Indianapolis, IN 46203. While there will be some provided seating at this outdoor event, we encourage visitors to bring blankets or other lawn seating for them to enjoy during the event.
What: The September 1st concert is the first of seven Sundays of free multi-genre outdoor concerts and creative community gatherings in September and October. These performances range from spoken word poetry, jazz, folk, soul, rap, Latin, electronic music, and much more! Each week a select food vendor or food truck will be located and available to attendees, but visitors are also encouraged to pack and picnic openly in the Levitt VIBE space.
Why: To bring additional liveliness to an underused area of our neighborhood park with free outdoor music experiences and neighborly, inclusive, fun, and creative social gatherings.
Who: Arte Mexicano en Indiana and Big Car are collaborating with our partners at the City of Indianapolis/Indy Parks, local and national musicians, local vendors, artists, and poets — with the Bean Creek and Garfield Park neighborhoods and the Friends of Garfield Park.
This week’s lineup:

Sylvia Thomas

El Mirambaso

The Roundups

Mina and the Wondrous Flying Machine

To get a taste of the music the Levitt VIBE Indianapolis series will be bringing to Garfield Park, take a listen to our playlist featuring artists in our 2024 series!: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6XpDgduwF5sqhhZELQ5ocf?si=e564db6fb8a64714

Thanks to Efroymson Family Fund, Citizens Energy Group, and the Levitt Foundation for their generous support of Levitt VIBE!

The Levitt VIBE City Name Music Series is supported in part by the Mortimer & Mimi Levitt Foundation, which partners with changemakers and nonprofits across the country to activate underused outdoor spaces, creating welcoming and inclusive destinations where the power of free, live music brings people together, fosters belonging, and invigorates community life. www.levitt.org
