Big Car

Sketch Club with India Hines
2026-03-13 15:00 - 17:00 (America/Indiana/Indianapolis) | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
If you love sketching and are looking for community, hang out and draw with Big Car long-term artist-in-residence, India Hines. Open to all levels and artists of any kind! Beginners are welcome. Just drop by and draw 🙂

NIGHTJAR: Auboni
2026-03-18 06:30 - 21:00
Doors at 6:30 pm, Reading at 7 pm
Featured Poet: Auboni
Open mic prompt: Write a poem that describes the world you want to live in.

Read a poem or short piece that is 317 words maximum, and challenge yourself to share new work!
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About the Featured Poet: Auboni Essence is adaptable and agile but above all, Auboni is authentic. Auboni is the difference between writing about sadness and having the scars that show she lived through it. She’s the difference between pondering joy and her cheeks being sore from smiling. From performing in quaint, cozy rooms to dazzling stages, every platform turns into Polaris because she’s always headed north and the mic is forever warm. They love music. You can catch Auboni out dancing until their feet get weary, singing until their voice is hoarse or wringing their hands stained with ink from the last writing session. They never have to find the right thing to say because the truth doesn’t care who tells it.
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.

Cory Robinson- Kept Secrets : Open Code
2026-04-03 08:00 - 2026-09-13 17:00
TUBE GALLERY at CAMi | APRIL 3 – SEPT. 13

In this exhibition, designer Cory Robinson builds upon his CODEX series, which employs a system of form typologies in varying combinations to generate unique compositions in both two- and three-dimensional works. Kept Secrets: Open Code uses this preordained design language to explore layered personal histories through recontextualized objects. The gallery is organized around three distinct spatial environments: the Church, the Court, and the Garten.
The Church features five large, tufted rugs installed in a continuous curved sequence, evoking the apse of a cathedral. Produced in collaboration with a software-driven production partner, the designs translate the flat graphic language of the CODEX Series into textile compositions—digitally precise in conception yet softened and humanized in their yarn-rendered finish. The space engages the mystery and contemplative atmosphere associated with liturgical environments, using the unlikely medium of tufted yarn to construct images meant for quiet reflection. Robinson, who grew up in a rural, working-class community in central Indiana, was not raised religious and felt this positioned him as an outsider. Over time he has come to redefine his personal meaning of “church,” and here considers the work of Light and Space artists such as James Turrell, who—often inspired by sacred architecture—manipulates environments to alter perception and elicit the divine.
The Court presents two exaggerated, throne-like chairs flanking the entrance to the Church. Their conceptual origins lie in the artist’s complicated relationship with the American justice system—specifically, a teenage courtroom experience in which he was publicly dismissed by a judge as a “smartass kid.” That moment destabilized his faith in law and order as neutral principles, and the installation explores the symbolism of thrones in relation to justice and power. The thrones incorporate multiple historical and cultural references: the ball-and-claw carving tradition of 18th-century Philadelphia furniture, the golden throne of Tutankhamun, and notably, tattoo subcultures, in which Robinson has observed phrases and ornamentation that reflect adherence to particular codes of law and order. The armrests terminate in carved wooden knuckles engraved with the phrases Open Eyes and Slow Burn — references to surveillance culture and a public increasingly desensitized to crisis. Together the thrones ask: who defines the law, who benefits from it, and how are its symbols constructed and maintained?
The Garten is the most personal and quietest of the three environments. A grouped installation of sculptural lighting objects made from salvaged redwood, it is rooted in the artist’s lifelong affinity for plants and their coded visual languages. As a child, the “garden” for Robinson was the expansive acreage of genetically modified corn that surrounded his home. His affinity for cultivating plants developed as a hobby throughout adolescence and adulthood, and his studio practice grew to consider biomimetic design and how leaf shapes, branching patterns, and other forms repeat and vary across species. Robinson’s decision to work with redwood was galvanized during a visit to his grandfather’s home in the early 2020s, where he discovered a pile of redwood boards in the garage—remnants of a long-abandoned home improvement project. While he had previously avoided the material for its softness, it suddenly acquired new sentimental value. Warm and organic in contrast to the Court’s gold-leafed authority, the Garten asks gentler questions—how do leaf shapes create beauty in functional objects, and how do objects speak to one another the way plants animate a living space?
—Shelley Selim
About the Artist: Cory Robinson is a multi-disciplinary artist and designer whose practice navigates the intersection of fine art, functional design, and public engagement. With a career spanning over two decades, Robinson’s work is characterized by a relentless curiosity regarding materials, manufacturing processes, and the narrative potential of objects.
Curator: Shauta Marsh with support from Shelley Selim, Mort Harris Curator of Automotive, Industrial, and Decorative Design, Detroit Institute of Arts
This exhibition was made possible by The Efroymson Family Fund, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation, The Arts Council of Indianapolis and the City of Indianapolis.

Tony Cokes: Untitled (m.j. the symptom)
2026-04-03 08:00 - 2026-09-19 17:00
TUBE VIDEO GALLERY at CAMi| APRIL 3 – SEPTEMBER 13
Borrowing its text from assorted excerpts from the Mark Fisher-edited essay collection The Resistible Demise of Michael Jackson (2009), Untitled (m.j. the symptom) examines the King of Pop as a complex set of contradictory signifiers, a funhouse reflection that is as distinct, spectacular, and compromised as the culture that produced him. So say Kraftwerk in their haunting 1977 song “Hall of Mirrors”: “Even the greatest stars / find themselves in the looking glass.”
About the Artist
Tony Cokes makes politically resonant works in a visual language all his own. Since the 1980s, his work has surfaced the latent ideologies of popular culture, confronting issues of structural racism, power, visibility, and the defiant pleasures still found under capitalism. Cokes samples and remixes fragments of our media landscape to subvert its governing codes. His tightly choreographed video essays layer found text over vibrant colors and dissonant soundtracks, exploiting the gaps between sensory regimes to heighten and complicate the reading experience. Quoted passages from current events or critical theory take on a new tenor when set to music, resulting in propulsive animations that appeal to the mind and body alike. Cokes’s immersive works make text feel visceral and let rhythm spur new insight: as his art attests, “it is possible to dance and think at the same time.”

2026 Levitt VIBE Indianapolis Music Series: April Concert
2026-04-12 12:00 - 15:00
Big Car Collaborative and Arte Mexicano en Indiana are excited to present the third season of the Levitt VIBE Indianapolis Music Series, part of the national Levitt VIBE program supported by the Los-Angeles-based Levitt Family Foundation! This year, we’ll continue bringing FREE, family-friendly live concerts to the Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi) campus.
When: Noon to 3 p.m. on April 12 (AND May 3, June 7, July 12, Aug. 9, Sept. 13, Oct. 11, and Nov. 8)
Where: Outdoors on the CAMi campus in the Terri Sisson Park greenspace located at 1125 Cruft St. Concerts will be moved inside the Tube building in the case of bad weather (rain, storms, extreme heat). We’ll announce this change on the morning of the concert. But the shows will always happen — just outside or in.
Who: Big Car Collaborative and Arte Mexicano produce the 2026 series with the Levitt Family Foundation as the lead sponsor with additional sponsors.
Why: To bring additional liveliness to our neighborhood with free outdoor music experiences and fun, and creative social gatherings.
April 12’s lineup:

81355 (BLESS) (hip-hop)
Kenyettá Dance Company (African American Dance)
Iván Maceda (Classical Guitarist)
Food truck: That Vegan Joint food truck (vegan comfort and Mexican food)

And:

Open picnicking (people can bring their own food and drink)
Some provided seating (attendees encouraged to bring lawn chairs or blankets)
CAMi campus galleries open
Bean Creek Outlook and Terri Sisson Park nature spaces open

Thanks to the Levitt Family Foundation for their generous support of the Levitt VIBE Indianapolis Music Series!
The Levitt VIBE Indianapolis Music Series is supported in part by the Levitt Family Foundation, which partners with changemakers and nonprofits across the country to activate underused outdoor spaces through the power of free, live music — bringing people together, fostering belonging, and invigorating community life. Presenting high- caliber talent and a broad array of music genres and cultural programming, Levitt concerts are welcoming and inclusive destinations where people of all ages and backgrounds come together.
