Big Car

Artists & Community Conversation Series- Cal Cullen, Allen Woods, Dr. Jarrod Dortch
2021-07-22 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Indiana/Indianapolis)
Join us for the third installment of this four part series developed with artists and neighbors who are doing work related to or influencing our thinking with the Artist and Public Life affordable artist housing residency in our neighborhood on the near Southside of Indianapolis.
This episode will include Executive Director of Wavepool Cal Cullen, Executive Director of Mortar Allen Woods, and APLR artist Dr. Jarrod Dortch
Made possible by PNC Bank.

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About Cal Cullen
Calcagno Cullen is a social practice artist, arts educator, and curator. She is founder and Executive Director of Wave Pool Arts Center, a gallery, studio space, and socially-engaged arts activator in Cincinnati, and the co-founder of The Welcome Project, a social-enterprise and makerspace for and by Cincinnati’s refugees and immigrants. She has previously worked in the education department of SFMOMA, the Community School of Music and Arts in Mountain View, California and was the Director of Adobe Books Backroom Gallery in San Francisco,. She is a member of the women’s art collective The FemFour, and collaboratively organizes the traveling exhibition and catalog of Women’s March posters entitled ‘Still They Persist.’ She has also curated and organized a multitude of exhibitions including ‘Dial Collect’ in 2013 at SOMArts in San Francisco, ‘Social Medium’ at Wave Pool, a segment of ‘Bay Area NOW 7’ at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and Survival Adaptations at Adobe Books Backroom Gallery. She has been artist in residence at The Center for Great Neighborhoods in Covington, KY, Lo Studio dei Nipoti in Calabria, Italy, Teple Misto in Ivano Frankivsk, Ukraine, and in Sardegna, Italy. Her work has been shown in solo shows at Adobe Books Backroom Gallery, the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, and elsewhere. Her personal mission is to “create empathy and social change through contemporary art.”

About Allen Woods
Managing Partner & Creative Director of Mortar

Woods is a devoted husband, father and entrepreneur – in that order. A lifelong Midwesterner, he’s never allowed the size of a city to place a limit on the size of his dreams. Allen is the creative force behind the MORTAR brand, as well as a business consultant and training facilitator for incoming students.
His determination (or stubbornness – as his mom would call it) has allowed him to develop a resiliency that has grown with him on his entrepreneurial journey. Recognized as a 2016 Cincinnati Business Courier 40 under 40 Business Leader, 2017 John F. Barrett Entrepreneur Vision Award and 2017 Echoing Green BMA Fellow, Woods is also a sought-after public speaker who recently shined on the TEDx stage. As a brand strategist and designer, Allen assisted directly in the growth of hundreds of small businesses and personal brands across the globe.
When Allen isn’t at MORTAR, he’s probably somewhere with his wife, Kyla, planning or recording the next episode of their brand new marriage podcast, Permanent Plus One.

About Dr. Jarrod Dortch
Dr. Jarrod Nicholas Dortch is a Professor of Communication at Ivy Tech Community College in Muncie, Indiana. He also serves as the owner and operator of Solful Gardens, a local urban agriculture startup specializing in bringing Fresh.Urban.Natural produce to clients’ properties and working with community gardens. He has been affiliated with Big Car as a Community Artist and as Community Gardener at the Tube Factory artspace. He is currently working with Listen Hear and WQRT 99.1 FM. He enjoys bringing together art, education, and gardening to help to enrich the experiences of communities and their denizens.

New Harmony Community Conversation-Social Alchemy
2021-06-24 19:00 - 20:00
New Harmony residents are invited to our help plan for our reboot of Social Alchemy, a series of events connecting New Harmony and Indianapolis! These meet ups in New Harmony invite residents to meet those involved in proposing in the project and become part of it.
This meeting we will discuss the symposium which is scheduled for April 10-13, 2022.

E-mail email hidden; JavaScript is required for the Zoom link. This meeting is at 6pm in New Harmony, IN.

Why is this called Social Alchemy? In our research about New Harmony, we discovered that Father George Rapp — founder of the Harmonists, the first utopian experiment in New Harmony — studied alchemy and was trying to make gold and other precious commodities to fund his vision of utopia. Today, with New Harmony already a successful town with much to offer (including events and public programs), this project and symposium combines all the assets of New Harmony: the people who live there, the architecture, art, and food to celebrate and expand the town’s magic to Indianapolis and hopefully even further. We’re calling this mixture of everything Social Alchemy.

New Harmony, Indiana brims with art, history, architecture, and a strong sense of place. The impact of past and current efforts within this community have created a town that continues to represent the universal human condition.

What can we in urban Indianapolis learn from rural New Harmony’s social alchemy? Tons. With support of Indiana Humanities and the Efroymson Family fund and our partners — University of Southern Indiana, Indiana State Museum, Historic New Harmony, New Harmony Workingmen’s Institute Central Library, and lots of individuals –– we will explore, learn and share how the pursuit of utopia forms places and pursuits.

WHY IS BIG CAR INVOLVED?
We’re fascinated by people who strive for utopia and by intentional communities: Past, present, and future. Our overarching goal for the Cruft Street Commons project in Garfield Park is to develop an arts-focused, socially cohesive block. And a key inspiration is the southwestern Indiana town, New Harmony — location of multiple and varied utopian experiments.

THE PROGRAM
This idea started with visits by Big Car Collaborative/Tube Factory artspace curator, Shauta Marsh, and artist and writer Jim Walker, to New Harmony over the past several years and conversations with artist, writer, and philanthropist Jeremy Efroymson — who lives, part-time, in New Harmony — and former New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art director Garry Holstein. It is made possible by Indiana Humanities and The Efroymson Family Fund.

WHAT WE’RE DOING:
• An interdisciplinary exhibition at the New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art focused on New Harmony’s visionary civic leader and preservationist Jane Owen (1915–2010).
• An exhibition at the Tube Factory about the history and art of New Harmony (designed to travel), with emphasis on Angel in the Forest and visual interpretations of this lyrical text.
• A series of radio shows.
• A symposium in April 2022 in New Harmony to include philosophers, writers, historians, designers, architects, placemakers, urban and rural city planners, politicians, and community organizers.
• Two Tube Factory exhibitions by Native American artists Elisa Harkins and Wendy Red Star: both creative responses to their peoples’ forced dystopias, with ideas for cultural renewal.

THE IMPACT
This project explores historical and contemporary examples of utopian experiments, fictional utopias and dystopias, and social design projects. It offers a deeper understanding of the relationship between the built environment and social good.

PROJECT PARTNERS
University of Southern Indiana: As the administrator of both Historic New Harmony and the New Harmony Gallery, USI is encouraging staff, professors, and students to participate in the project.

Historic New Harmony: HNH will host programs, help to develop the exhibitions, and help travel the New Harmony exhibition about after its Indianapolis debut.
New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art: The gallery will host the Jane Owen exhibition.
Indiana State Museum: The museum will be assisting with research, and help with didactics.
Pattern will be a promotional partner alongside Big Car’s low-power radio station 99.1 WQRT FM.

Natasha Vidger:Common Ground
2021-06-04 18:00 - 2021-07-18 22:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
Life-sized, sprawling canvases house images of animals that learned to live in new worlds, in habitats created by humans. Vidger’s painted canvases are aged with natural elements to move away from traditional, romanticized landscapes. She removes the animals from their environments, from their homes so we see them in this state of limbo, wondering where they go next. “By utilizing natural pigments to age my canvases, I present an alternative landscape that expresses the duality of desolation and splendor.”
Vidger explores common themes of survival and struggle that life confronts us all with. Her work offers the viewer opportunities to question human-focused hierarchy. “I want to confront the viewers with the power, mystery, fear, and beauty that is encapsulated within the animal gaze and the animal form to bridge the perceived line between animals and humans.”
Vidger’s work also examines society’s perceived superiority over animals. “I seek to reforge a broken relationship between people and animals by creating a physical space that viewers can reflect on the niches animals inhabit in a human-dominated landscape. My paintings balance refined and unrefined areas to represent the fracturing of animal populations and the surreal and isolated environments that animals are increasingly forced to navigate.”
Born and raised in Colorado, Vidger experienced nature growing up with day trips in the Rocky Mountains. “Subconsciously, there was a division in my mind between myself and animals. They were among the trees and rocks. And I was between ranch style homes and manicured lawns. Despite this division, I developed a kinship with animals. They felt familiar and relatable. Eventually, I developed a deep love and insatiable curiosity for wildlife. Art has long served as a way for me to satisfy and explore this passion.”
Vidger received a BFA from Adams State University and an MFA from Herron School of Art and Design with emphasis in painting and drawing. After the typical structured study of art in form, shape, and light, Vidger progressed into a focus of animal art. In her early years, surreal platforms gave way to animal form, composing voices for her subjects and their plights.
Masks are required. Made possible by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Amanda Strong:Animations
2021-06-04 18:00 - 22:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
“Biidaaban”
In Amanda Strong’s astonishing short film, Biidaaban sets out to harvest sap from sugar maples in urban Ontario neighbourhoods. The practice of harvesting sap to create syrup goes back to time immemorial for the Anishinaabe, people but the lands have since been covered over by urban development and occupation. Biidaabaan can see the traces of the people, creatures, land and time as they work to continue in their ancestors’ movements. Biidaaban is a young Anishinaabe gender non-binary person that can see through multiple dimensions while existing and moving in their present time and space. They are sometimes accompanied by their friend Sabe (a 10,000-year-old shape shifter who some have called a Sasquatch), Ghost Caribou, and Ghost Wolf — but only Biidaaban can see them. They act as reminders of what exists in this space and provide lessons about honesty, humility and working for the people.
19 minutes 14 secs

“Four Faces of the Moon”
This animated documentary follows the journey of an Indigenous photographer as she travels through time. She witnesses moments in her family’s history and strengthens her connection to her Metis, Cree and Anishnaabe ancestors. This is a personal story told through the eyes of director and writer Amanda Strong. The oral and written history of her family reveals the story — we witness the impact and legacy of the railways, the slaughter of the buffalo and colonial land policies.
12 minutes 54 secs

About Amanda Strong
Amanda Strong is an Michif interdisciplinary artist with a focus on filmmaking, stop motion animations and media art. Currently based on unceded Coast Salish territories also known as Vancouver, BC, Canada. Strong received a BAA in Interpretative Illustration and a Diploma in Applied Photography from the Sheridan Institute. With a cross-discipline focus, common themes of her work are reclamation of Indigenous histories, lineage, language and culture. Strong is the Owner/Director/Producer of Spotted Fawn Productions Inc. (SFP). Under her direction, SFP utilizes a multi-layered approach and unconventional methods that are centered in collaboration on all aspects of their work.
Strong’s work is fiercely process-driven and takes form in various mediums such as: virtual reality, stop-motion, 2D/3D animation, gallery/museum installations, published books and community-activated projects. Strong and her team at Spotted Fawn Productions are currently working on the research and development of bringing these works into more interactive spaces.
Most recently she was selected by renowned filmmaker Alanis Obamsawin to receive $50,000 in post-services through the Clyde Gilmour Technicolour Award. In 2016 she received the Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Awards for Emerging Film and Media Artist. In 2013, Amanda was the recipient of K.M. Hunter Artist Award for Film and Video. Her films have screened across the globe, most notably at Cannes, TIFF, VIFF, and Ottawa International Animation Festival. She has received grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, BC Arts Council and the NFB. Spotted Fawn Productions is currently developing new short animations Wheetago War and Spirit Bear. SFP’s latest short animations Biidaaban (The dawn comes) Four Faces of the Moon and Flood are available online through CBC Short Docs and CBC Arts.

Masks are required. Made possible by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Artists & Community Speaker Series with Daniel Gray-Kontar, Raymond Bobgan, and Uzuri Asad
2021-05-27 19:00 - 20:00
Join us for the second installment of this four part series developed with artists and neighbors who are doing work related to or influencing our thinking with the Artist and Public Life affordable artist housing residency in our neighborhood on the near Southside of Indianapolis.
This episode will include Executive Artistic Director of Twelve Literary Arts Daniel Gray-Kontar, Executive Artistic Director of the Cleveland Public Theater Raymond Bobgan, and APLR artist Uzuri Asad.

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Made possible by PNC Bank.

About Daniel Gray-Kontar
Daniel Gray-Kontar is a poet, teacher, youth mentor, rapper, journalist, and education activist. He has worked as an advocate for social transformation in the city of Cleveland for more than 25 years. Gray-Kontar is an education consultant for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; writer-in-residence at MOCA Cleveland; the former chair of the Literary Arts Department at the Cleveland School of the Arts; and a former graduate school fellow at UC Berkeley’s College of Education. His work in arts education has been showcased on PBS Newshour, The UK Guardian, NPR, and The Christian Science Monitor, among other news media outlets. Gray-Kontar has lectured at universities, public schools, arts organizations and scholarly conferences across the US. His Ted Talk discussing youth leadership in public school education has affected the ways public school administrators think about the inclusion of youth and their families in the process of re-making school cultures and curricula.

About Uzuri Asad
Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Uzuri Asad now lives and works in the Garfield Park neighborhood of Indianapolis as part of Big Car Collaborative’s Artist in Public Life Residency program. She’s a singer, dancer, choreographer, and jewelry-maker. Formally trained in West African dance and contemporary movement, her art is guided by lived experiences and her cultural upbringing. Her style is a unique blend of fluid, free flowing, yet intentional movements. For Asad, dance is a sacred means of individual expression that lives and breathes through her.

Audrey Barcio and Rachel Leah Cohn: Sapientia Gloria Corona Est
2021-05-15 17:00 - 2021-06-27 16:00 | New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art, 506 Main St, New Harmony, IN, 47631, United States
New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art is proud to present “Sapientia Gloria Corona Est,” curated by Shauta Marsh and featuring works by Audrey Barcio and Rachel Leah Cohn.
“Sapientia Gloria Corona Est” runs from May 15 through June 27, 2021 and opens with a limited reception on Saturday, May 15 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. CT. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. on Sundays.
As part of the ongoing Social Alchemy partnership with Indianapolis-based Big Car Collaborative, this exhibition taps into the history, art, and architecture that has long made New Harmony a source of creative and spiritual energy for artists and thinkers. Sapientia Gloria Corona Est—or, Wisdom is the Crown of Glory—is the motto of the Minerva Society, one of the first women’s clubs in America. Founded in New Harmony, the leaders of the Minerva Society nurtured critical conversation, political debate, and community engagement. Curator Shauta Marsh finds similar qualities in the works and practices of Audrey Barcio and Rachel Leah Cohn.
Ideas of utopia and dystopia have long influenced these artists and their work. Through large-scale floor sculptures and reflective wall pieces, Audrey Barcio and Rachel Leah Cohn each explore concepts of memory, mythology, and community. “Sapientia Gloria Corona Est” unifies Barcio and Cohn not only as artists, but as teachers, provocateurs, feminists, and catalysts for change. This exhibit, like Social Alchemy as a whole, simultaneously looks back and ahead and strives to make progress as a society.
Women are what they think.
……
Audrey Barcio is an artist and assistant professor at Ball State University. Through the use of universal symbology that is rooted in the language of the early abstractionists, her work strives to change the accepted cultural raison d’être by positing a heritage of abstraction voiced in the feminine present. Barcio received her BAE from Herron School of Art and Design and her MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She attended the Pont-Aven School of Contemporary Art in Brittany, France, and completed a Vermont Studio Center residency in 2017 and is a 2019 Pollock – Krasner Foundation Grant recipient. Her work has been published in New American Paintings and has been featured in multiple group exhibitions around the U.S., including Art in America at the Art Miami Satellite Fair, ART IN CONTEXT: Selections from the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art Collection, Las Vegas, NV, and GLAMFA at UC Long Beach. Recent solo exhibitions include Syracuse University, New York, the Las Vegas Government Center, Las Vegas, NV, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Tube Factory in Indianapolis. Barcio’s work is included in several public and private collections, including that of the Barrick Museum of Art.

Rachel Leah Cohn is an interdisciplinary artist working with painting, sculpture, video and performance. She values experimentation, collaboration and trying to find new ways to describe the world around her. Recent projects have included building a portable sauna with green tea steam, searching for mirages out in the desert of Zekreet, Qatar and trying to send a painting by radio waves to New Zealand. Rachel exhibits her work internationally, including recent exhibitions in collaboration with the Qatar Museums, the Istanbul Design Biennial and Aterlierhaus Salzamt in Linz, Austria. She has attended many international artist residency programs, recently including Signal Culture, Otis College of Art and Design and the Fire Station in Doha, Qatar. She holds an MFA in Painting from Virginia Commonwealth University and is the Foundations Coordinator for the School of Art at Ball State University in Muncie specializing in 4D Foundations.

The Social Alchemy project is a multifaceted, multiyear, interdisciplinary project in partnership with Big Car Collaborative, University of Southern Indiana, Historic New Harmony, New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art, Working Men’s Institute, Indiana State Museum, Efroymson Family Fund, and Indiana Humanities. This project explores historical and contemporary examples of utopian experiments, fictional utopias and dystopias, and social design projects. It offers a deeper understanding of the relationship between the built environment and social good. For more information, visit the Social Alchemy project at bigcar.org/utopia.

New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art provides a not-for-profit exhibition space for Midwestern artists and to promote discourse about and access to contemporary art in the southern Indiana region. Since its inception in 1975, the gallery has provided an exhibition space for young and midcareer artists to show their work in a professional setting and a venue for contemporary art for the general public. The cornerstone of the Gallery’s mission is education and access through a carefully planned series of seven exhibitions per year. The exhibition series explores contemporary art concepts and provides increased opportunity for artists and the public to engage in discourse on and about the arts and culture.
New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art is a proud outreach partner of the University of Southern Indiana.

This exhibition is made possible in part by the Arts Council of Southwestern Indiana and the Indiana Arts Commission, which receives support from the State of Indiana and the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Indianapolis Anthology Reading & Book Release
2021-05-15 17:00 - 19:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
“As a child, I thought Naptown was a cool nickname for Indianapolis. Little did I know it was more pejorative than cool. Indianapolis used to—and sometimes still does—have a reputation for being boring and lacking culture. The Indianapolis Anthology proves otherwise. We see the beauty, the ugliness, the racism, the diversity, the past, and the present. It’s all here. Through each story, you see Naptown isn’t a sleepy little city, and I was right all along.” —Oseye Boyd, editor of the Indianapolis Recorder
“A must-read for anyone who thinks they know the city.” —Rachel Sahaidachny, associate editor of The Indianapolis Review
The Indianapolis Anthology (May 4, 2021), edited by Norman Minnick, showcases Naptown’s vibrancy and diversity with pieces from journalists, poets, historians, established community voices, and first-time writers. Indianapolis is more than the home of the Indianapolis 500, John Dillinger, Kurt Vonnegut,and Wonder Bread. In these pages you’ll find lawn chairs in the beds of pick-ups; the magnificent stench of diesel, sweat, and sweetly hissing charcoal; suffragists and entrepreneurs; cement Pietàs; sneakers dangling from power lines; dog bakeries and yoga studios; red brick bungalows and war memorials; steakburgers and Mexican seafood; Pho and sauerbraten. In other words, you’ll find not Naptown, or flyover country, but a vibrant city that is truly a cross section of today’s America.
Belt books are distributed by Publishers Group West.
Masks are required

Artists & Community Conversation Series- Juan William Chavez, Dr. Jarrod Dortch and David Kirkland
2021-05-13 19:00 - 20:00
Join us for the first installment of this four part series developed with artists and neighbors who are doing work related to or influencing our thinking with the Artist and Public Life affordable artist housing residency in our neighborhood on the near Southside of Indianapolis.
This episode will include Juan William Chávez artist, activist and director of Northside Workshop, APLR artist, Dr. Jarrod Dortch and Chef David Kirkland.

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Made possible by PNC Bank.

About Juan William Chávez
Juan William Chávez is an artist, activist and director of Northside Workshop. His studio practice focuses on sculpting space within urban ecosystems through partnerships and collaborations as a way to address social and environmental issues. His work includes public sculptures, multimedia installations, paintings, drawings, and unconventional forms of beekeeping and agriculture. His exhibitions focus on themes of the urban environment, ecology, sustainability, craft/labor, activism, identity and archaeology of place. Chavez has exhibited at ArtPace, Van Abbemuseum, McColl Center for Art, Tube Factory Artspace, 21c Museum Hotel, Laumeier Sculpture Park, and Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. Currently Chavez’s work was included in El Museo’s survey of contemporary Latinx art, ESTAMOS BIEN – LA TRIENAL 20/21. His interdisciplinary approach to art has gained the attention and support of prestigious institutions like the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, Creative Capital, Graham Foundation, ArtPlace America, Andy Warhol Foundation, and Art Matters Foundation. Chávez holds a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Read More: https://juanwilliamchavez.com/home.html

About Chef David Kirkland
David Kirkland, the owner and executive chef of Turn Restaurant and David Kirkland Catering, believes food and music brings people together. He began his career in the early-1990’s, bouncing from the Café at St. Louis Art Museum (Catering St. Louis) to Frazier’s Brown Bag, and then Venice Café. Kirkland learned everything he could from some of the city’s best. In 1996, he moved to San Francisco and began focusing on his music interests, becoming a resident DJ at several clubs throughout the city. However, he never lost his love for the culinary arts, cooking for friends and family and exploring the area’s now famous farm-to-table approach to food. After moving back to St. Louis, Kirkland returned to the kitchen with a mission, taking the helm at Café Osage in 2007. He opened Turn Restaurant and David Kirkland Catering in Spring of 2016.
Read More https://www.stlmag.com/…/hot-seat-a-conversation-with…/

About Dr. Jarrod Dortch
Dr. Jarrod Nicholas Dortch is a Professor of Communication at Ivy Tech Community College in Muncie, Indiana. He also serves as the owner and operator of Solful Gardens, a local urban agriculture startup specializing in bringing Fresh.Urban.Natural produce to clients’ properties and working with community gardens. He has been affiliated with Big Car as a Community Artist and as Community Gardener at the Tube Factory artspace. He is currently working with Listen Hear and WQRT 99.1 FM. He enjoys bringing together art, education, and gardening to help to enrich the experiences of communities and their denizens.

Power Plant Grant Information Session
2021-04-15 18:30 - 21:00
Learn more about the new annual Power Plant Grant program made possible by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts on March 25, 6:30pm, April 1, 6:30pm or April 15, 6:30pm. The grants provide visual artists who live, work, or run spaces in Indianapolis with grants ranging from $2,000 to $10,000. Applications for this round are due by April 26, 2021.
Eligible applicants are visual/multidisciplinary artists who create original work in painting, drawing, sculpture, book art, ceramics, fiber, printmaking, digital/media works, film, video, photography, performance art, sound art, social practice and/or hybrid or interdisciplinary practice of any/all of the above.
Artists must be over 21 at the time of the application, and may not be full-time students.
Artists must live and/or work in Indianapolis.
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

Art Dog
2021-04-11 12:00 - 17:15 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
Join us for the first event of 2021 at Tube Factory! We are partnering with food artist extrodinaries, Thin Glizzy. We are excited to share with you foot long hot dogs like we’ve never seen or tasted before! Also on site will be Cat Head Press, doing demos and selling merchandise from some of Indianapolis’s best artists, live music from Preston Ott, and War Pig Beer available. Littleton, CO native Natasha Vidger will have her artwork up in the Main Gallery at Tube. Reserve your tickets now for indoor seating. No groups of more than 4. And this ticket will reserve your seat for 45 minutes. Franklin Food Pantry will be accepting canned good donations. Masks required. Hot dogs range in price from $10-12.

Social Alchemy Listening Party-Father George Rapp
2021-04-07 18:00 - 19:00
Some call him a cult leader, some call him a religious leader. An alchemist and successful business man, Father George Rapp set the stage for the future of Indiana when he purchased 20,000 acres of land in Southern Indiana to build New Harmony. Learn more about this man and the myths behind him through the eyes of author Marguerite Young, Jim Walker and Shauta Marsh. With music and sound design from Andy Fry, you won’t want to miss this audio masterpiece.
In this episode of Social Alchemy, we follow religious leader from the early 1800s, Father George Rapp’s mystical — and often tragic — journey, some of it in New Harmony, Indiana toward a heavenly utopia of his own design. Social Alchemy is an ongoing series of in-person and on-air events and programs by the nonprofit arts organization Big Car Collaborative that explores subjects and themes surrounding utopia and dystopia.
Encore April 10, at noon.
Special thanks to Aaron Scamihorn for the illustration.
Our partners in the Social Alchemy Project are: University of Southern Indiana (USI), Historic New Harmony, Indiana State Museum and Pattern Magazine.
The series — including this show produced by and airing first on 99.1 WQRT Indianapolis — is made possible with the support of Indiana Humanities and the Efroymson Family Fund.

Power Plant Grant Information Session
2021-04-01 18:30 - 21:00, 2021-03-25 18:30 - 21:00
Learn more about the new annual Power Plant Grant program made possible by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts on March 25, 6:30pm, April 1, 6:30pm or April 15, 6:30pm. The grants provide visual artists who live, work, or run spaces in Indianapolis with grants ranging from $2,000 to $10,000. Applications for this round are due by April 26, 2021.
Eligible applicants are visual/multidisciplinary artists who create original work in painting, drawing, sculpture, book art, ceramics, fiber, printmaking, digital/media works, film, video, photography, performance art, sound art, social practice and/or hybrid or interdisciplinary practice of any/all of the above.
Artists must be over 21 at the time of the application, and may not be full-time students.
Artists must live and/or work in Indianapolis.
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.

Words & Music-In the Heart of the Heart of the Country
2021-03-31 18:00 - 19:00
In this first installment of Words & Music: An audio series exploring the life and work of Indiana writers, Hoosier authors Susan Neville, Adrian Matejka, Kevin McKelvey, and Jim Walker discuss the sublime beauty and challenges of Indiana through the lens of William H. Gass’s 1968 fiction story, “In the Heart of the Heart of the Country.”
The episode features excerpts of the story as well as a conversation about what it means to be a writer living and working in Indiana. This launches an eight-part series made possible by Indiana Humanities and produced by WQRT and Big Car Collaborative.
You can listen live via the streaming link or listen on regular FM radio in Indianapolis by tuning in to 99.1 FM. After it debuts on the station, it will be available for listening online. We’ll share that link here.
About the participants in this show (all Indiana writers):
Susan Neville is the author of six works of creative nonfiction and her collections of short fiction include The Town of Whispering Dolls, winner of the Doctorow Prize for Innovative Fiction; In the House of Blue Lights, winner of the Richard Sullivan prize; and Invention of Flight, winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. She teaches at Butler University.
Adrian Matejka was born in Nuremberg, Germany and grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana. He teaches at Indiana University in Bloomington and served as Poet Laureate of Indiana for 2018-19. He is the author of five award winning books and his first graphic novel, “Last On His Feet” is forthcoming from Liveright in 2022.
Kevin McKelvey is a place-based poet, writer, designer, and social practice artist. He teaches at University of Indianapolis and directs the M.A. in Social Practice Art and oversees the undergraduate major in Environmental Sustainability. At University of Indianapolis, he founded Etchings Press, a student-run publisher, helped start a community garden and microfarm, and has contributed to numerous interdisciplinary efforts for students and the community.
Jim Walker is a poet, artist, and teacher who believes everyone deserves open access to the joys of art, creativity, and great public places. A co-founder and executive director of Big Car Collaborative, Jim worked previously as a journalist (writer, photographer, editor, and designer). He’s a student of cities and enjoys spending time with his family, supporting his Garfield Park neighborhood, walking, biking, travel, reading, and baseball.

The Wagon of Wonders at Turkey Run
2020-09-12 11:00 - 2020-09-13 15:00
Become one with nature….and art! The Wagon of Wonders, Big Car Collaborative’s mobile, interactive art unit and pop-up public space, is coming to Turkey Run for third year. Visitors are invited to explore the Wagon and participate in a variety of safe and friendly art activities inspired by the park. Beautiful Turkey Run State Park has something for everyone to enjoy: hiking and bridle trails trails, camp sites, historic sites, and an educational nature center. Explore all that Turkey Run and the Wagon of Wonders have to offer!

Join us Saturday, September 12, from 11am-5pm and Sunday, September 13, 11am-3pm.

This program was made possible by the Arts in the Parks grant program through the Indiana Arts Commission.

Donate Blood
2020-07-09 14:00 - 19:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
Big Car Collaborative – is partnering with Versiti Blood Centers of Indiana to save community lives.
Please come out to support our drive on Thursday, July 9th, from 2:00pm to 7:00pm pm at the Tube Factory artspace-Parking Lot. Follow the link below to schedule your donation today!
Here is the link to schedule your appointment:
https://donate.indiana.versiti.org/donor/schedules/drive_schedule/142962
Donor Health & Registration:
All donor-facing staff will have their temperature taken prior to beginning their work day
Donors temperatures will be taken at registration to ensure they are not elevated prior to entering donation areas
Donors will be asked if they’ve come in contact with someone who’s tested positive for COVID-19
Donors will be asked to wash hands prior to screening
Donors will be asked if they are currently experiencing coughing or shortness of breath
If any of the above is true, donors will be asked to self-defer
Social Distancing:
We encourage all donors to make an appointment to lessen the amount of people waiting at our donor centers
To comply with government regulations, all sponsors and donors must wear personal masks at donor centers and mobile drives
Ensuring six feet of space between chairs in waiting areas and cafe
Ensuring six feet of space between donation chairs and/or separation with medical screens
If appointment registration congestion occurs, we will ask for your cell phone number and text when your appointment is ready
Cleaning:
We clean all equipment, beds, and other surfaces after each donor finishes their donation
Changing gloves frequently and between donors is part of our normal practice
We will maintain sanitized pen bins, so donors are only using clean pens at sign-in

Freedom To Be-Book Launch
2020-06-27 14:00 - 16:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
Will be rescheduled.
Join award-winning author Diana Ensign for this celebratory book signing and educational panel discussion on how our community can support transgender people and their families. Hear from Kimberly Acoff, Indiana Youth Group (IYG) Director of Programming; Sa’hara Miller, BU Wellness Sophisticated Divas Program; Diana Asberry (parent of a transgender child and a nonbinary child); and Andru Lanning (awesome young adult)! Info table by Matty Slaydon, Organizer of Queering Indy. A portion of book sales support Trinity Haven, Indiana’s first transitional housing program for LGBTQ+ youth at risk of homelessness, and BU Wellness Network.

TransGlam
2020-06-06 17:00 - 22:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
Indy’s trans community invites you to join us during Pride Week for #TransGlam – A free night of community, food, fun, music and resources.
#TransGlam invites you to dance, socialize, and spend time in community while getting connected to resources. This is an all-inclusive space for all ages and all bodies. On site there will be free food, harm reduction supplies and education, trans affirming vendors, and of course YOU!
Show up, show your glam and be a part of the #TransGlam crew!
⏰ The party starts at 5:00pm.
Indy Pride is teaming up with QUIT NOW INDIANA to encourage healthy lifestyles for all members of our community with all Pride events being tobacco-free. For support and resources to quit tobacco, visit them at quitnowindiana.com or call 1-800-QUIT-NOW.

Writing Workshop with Mariah Ivey
2020-05-02 11:00 - 15:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
An interactive workshop led by Mariah Ivey.
Mariah is a graduate of Pike High School, studied at Columbia College Chicago and is an active Teaching + Performing Artist, Poet, MC, and Host/Coordinator of various local art and community events. She has spent the last five years working within the non-profit sector as a youth program facilitator and project manager where her love of young people, art, and education have all simultaneously come alive in order to create a more promising future!
Most nights and weekends, Mariah enjoys performing, hosting, and creating – both as an individual and alongside her band, TribeSouL. She also enjoys designing jewelry, being in nature, meditating, eating good food, and laughing…a lot!

SoundLab with Oreo Jones
2020-04-29 18:00 - 20:00 | Listen Hear, 2620 Shelby St, , Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
We are back with another edition of SOUND LAB! Join Oreo Jones at Listen Hear for an evening of sound exploration. Bring your synths, drum machines, pedals, theremins, or whatever you use to express yourself.
Sound Lab is a reoccurring workshop where we explore ways to communicate and express ourselves through sonic waves. Each attendee will be encouraged to play a piece that they have been working on and share ways of how they approached their work. The group will then attempt to work on a collaboration broadcasted live on 99.1 WQRT.

First Friday From Home Art Shares and Tours
2020-04-03 08:00 - 23:30
Usually we’re showing you new art every First Friday. But 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 using the hashtag #firstfridayfromhome or by posting pictures or videos (also can go live and tag Tube Factory artspace. 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.
Start sharing now, so we can share different artworks through FB and Twitter throughout the night of April 3. When you post, you can tell us who the artist is, why you bought it, how it makes you feel, whatever you want to say about art you have collected. We will also share some things along the way as we celebrate First Friday via our radio station, 99.1 WQRT FM (also accessible at www.wqrt.org).
If you’re in Indianapolis, show our friends at the Arts Council of Indianapolis some love and hashtag #indyKeepsCreating
All of us at Big Car are sending positive, healthy vibes your way. Excited to see your collections and see you in person when we get through the pandemic.

Western Dance with Uzuri Asad-Cancelled
2020-04-01 19:00 - 20:30 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
West African dance is an essential component of West African culture. Over time, traditional dances incorporated new moves, rhythms and ideas. Through the slave trade, and through national production of traditional dance forms, West African dance has found it’s way around the globe. West African Dance has influenced many popular American dance forms, such as hip-hop, salsa and jazz dance. Traditional dances are still practiced by many people today.
Uzuri Asad caters to all levels of students and is part of Big Car’s APLR program.
Traditional West African Dance
Dance has always played a very important role in the lives of West Africans. Throughout history, West Africans performed dances to celebrate a birth, harvest or death. Communities relied on dance to ward off evil spirits, to ask the gods for prosperity, or to resolve conflict. Dance continues to serve those functions. For example, villagers perform the Malinke rhythm Kassa during farming and harvesting work. The singing, dancing and clapping entertains and motivates the hard-working farmers.
Characteristics of West African Dance
African dance, according to R.F. Thomson, has four unique qualities. First, the body moves in a multi-unit fashion, where the head and arms may move to one rhythmic pattern while the feet follow a different time signature. Second, it is percussive; the dancer interprets the rhythmic nature of the music through movement. Third, though as a whole African dance is a community event, some dancers follow different parts of the rhythm, dancing “apart” from the crowd. Finally, West African dance phrases, or sets of movements, overlap, creating a “call-and-response” pattern.

West African Dance with Uzuri Asad-Cancelled
2020-03-25 19:00 - 20:30, 2020-03-18 19:00 - 20:30 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
West African dance is an essential component of West African culture. Over time, traditional dances incorporated new moves, rhythms and ideas. Through the slave trade, and through national production of traditional dance forms, West African dance has found it’s way around the globe. West African Dance has influenced many popular American dance forms, such as hip-hop, salsa and jazz dance. Traditional dances are still practiced by many people today.
Uzuri Asad caters to all levels of students and is part of Big Car’s APLR program.
Traditional West African Dance
Dance has always played a very important role in the lives of West Africans. Throughout history, West Africans performed dances to celebrate a birth, harvest or death. Communities relied on dance to ward off evil spirits, to ask the gods for prosperity, or to resolve conflict. Dance continues to serve those functions. For example, villagers perform the Malinke rhythm Kassa during farming and harvesting work. The singing, dancing and clapping entertains and motivates the hard-working farmers.
Characteristics of West African Dance
African dance, according to R.F. Thomson, has four unique qualities. First, the body moves in a multi-unit fashion, where the head and arms may move to one rhythmic pattern while the feet follow a different time signature. Second, it is percussive; the dancer interprets the rhythmic nature of the music through movement. Third, though as a whole African dance is a community event, some dancers follow different parts of the rhythm, dancing “apart” from the crowd. Finally, West African dance phrases, or sets of movements, overlap, creating a “call-and-response” pattern.
$10

Spring Equinox with Uzuri Asad-Cancelled
2020-03-22 10:00 - 14:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
Start the season off right with Uzuri Asad! We get pretty excited about the spring equinox bringing us out of winter and officially starting the season of spring. But what exactly is the spring equinox? And does an equinox happen at the start of every season?
First, let’s get into the equinox, which actually occurs just twice a year. The word equinox comes from Latin and means “equality of night and day.” So, the equinox occurs at two specific moments in time when the sun is exactly above the equator (contrary to popular belief, the equinox doesn’t last for 24 hours).
More details TBA.

Spring Zine Jam-Postponed
2020-03-14 12:00 - 15:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
Join us at Normal Coffee inside the Tube Factory Artspace for a collaborative zine jam just in time for spring to roll around! Supplies will be provided but you’re welcome to bring your own. Drawings, poetry, collage, whatever you think we should put in our spring zine works! Gluestick will print the zine shortly after and it will be available for pickup around Indy and at Normal. Don’t know what a zine is? Come find out!

West African Dance with Uzuri Asad
2020-03-11 19:00 - 20:30 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States

See America First Film Series-Ragtime
2020-03-10 19:00 - 22:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
Kipp Normand will introduce and host a discussion relating the film to his current exhibition in the Main Gallery at Tube Factory artspace, ‘Snake Oil’. Attendees will have a chance to win a original Normand sculpture, “Snake Oil.”
“A kaleidoscope of tales from E.L. Doctorow’s eponymous novel evokes life in pre-World War I New York City. A white family find a black baby in their yard and takes on the mother as a maid. A black pianist, Coalhouse Walker Jr. (Howard E. Rollins Jr.), returns for his woman and child after finding success in a Harlem jazz band. Firefighters, dismayed to see a black man own a Model-T Ford, deface it, and Walker demands retribution. The white family becomes involved in Evelyn Nesbit’s trial.”
Runtime -155 minutes

Who Are You? What Do You Want?
2020-03-06 18:00 - 22:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
“If you were a wrestler what would be your entrance theme song?”
This interactive exhibit in Guichelaar Gallery entails posting a series of questions that YOU answer on sticky notes.
March is Women’s History Month and in celebration we will also host a contest coloring a few historical women figures, $20 Normal Coffee gift cards will be awarded.

Aurora Photocenter Presents Adam Ekberg: The Other Side of Boredom
2020-03-06 18:00 - 22:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
For artist Adam Ekberg, moving past boredom means finding a space in which the mind is free to devise a logic of its own, and ordinary objects are liberated from the drudgery of daily life. The resulting photographic interventions are both mysterious and delightful. Cocktail umbrellas no longer shade tropical beverages but rather occupy a sunny beach en masse. Roller skates once relegated to an indoor rink now drag-race across an empty field propelled by burning aerosol cans.
Each of these photographs begins as a sketch drawn in a studio/barn in western New Jersey. As Ekberg realizes his staged happenings, the sketches pinned to the barn walls are removed and replaced with small finished photographs—constituting a small victory. His constructions, made entirely in camera without the aid of Photoshop, are not easily decoded or resolved. Ekberg’s translation of boredom reveals the poignant beauty that can take shape, however fleetingly, when the glint of possibility leaps out from the mundane.
Adam Ekberg received his MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has recently had solo exhibitions at ClampArt, New York; DeSoto Gallery, Los Angeles; Thomas Robertello Gallery, Chicago; Platform Gallery, Seattle; and Fotografiska, Stockholm, Sweden. His work has been included in recent group exhibitions at venues such as Aran Cravey Gallery, Los Angles CA; DePaul Art Museum, Chicago; RayKo Photo Center, San Francisco; and Crawford Art Gallery, Cork Ireland. His work is in the collections of The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, among others. He is the recipient of the Society for Photographic Education’s Imagemaker Award (2015). He was awarded a Tanne Foundation Award (2013). Ekberg has also received grants from Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs (2008, 2009, 2010) and the Union League Civic and Arts Foundation Grant (2005).
