Big Car

SPARK on the Circle- John Wesley Hardrick mural painting with Kaila Austin
2023-10-13 14:00 - 17:00 (America/Indiana/Indianapolis) | 1 Monument Circle, South Facing Steps, United States
Artist Kaila Austin have a live painting sessions of the John Wesley Hardrick mural at SPARK on the Circle at Monument Circle.

As the United States continues to face its history of enslavement, oppression, and exclusion of Black Americans in museums and other arenas of power and recognition, “Process as Practice: Reimagining the Lost Hardrick Mural” is impactful and unique as it explores both history and the potential for our future together. The exhibit which opens October 6, 6-10pm at Tube Factory artspace is part of an ongoing partnership between artist Kaila Austin, the Norwood community on the southeast side of Indianapolis, and the family of Indiana’s Harlem Renaissance painter, John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968). Austin will first exhibit the first stages of the mural at Re:Public, October 1, 11am-4pm & October 2, 12-2pm then again 3-6pm.
Over the last three years, Austin worked in Indianapolis with descendants of African-American Civil War veterans — known as the United States Colored Troops — to recover and record their family histories as their communities shift due to gentrification. For this project, Austin is working most closely with people from Norwood, a neighborhood less than a mile from her childhood home.
In February of 2021, Austin learned that the new city morgue would be built on the Hardrick homesite in Norwood, all while the neighborhood celebrated its 150th anniversary. Due to community activism from the descendants, the City canceled morgue construction. Since then, Austin and the community have worked together to reimagine the Hardrick homesite. The mural featured in this exhibit is part of that reimagining. “This entire project is work that’s transient and malleable. It changes as the research becomes more clear or muddy,” Austin, who remains a resident of the near southside as part of Big Car Collaborative’s long-term artist residency program.
This mural — recreated by Austin with the support of Hardrick’s family — was originally painted at Crispus Attucks High School in 1934 as part of the Works Progress Administration program. Hardrick was the only African American artist selected in the state. The mural depicted four foundry workers toiling in the heat, reflecting Hardrick’s lived experience working at a foundry in Norwood. However, the principal at Crispus Attucks wanted Black children to aspire to work in professions outside of manual labor, professions that historically excluded Black Americans. For this reason, the school put the mural in the basement, never to be seen again.
Austin reimagined what the mural looked like by working with the Hardrick family and descendants in Norwood. They explored his diaries and sketchbooks and looked at Hardrick’s mentors and peers — and the community that raised him. The exhibit gives us a chance to step into Hardrick’s world and see how he made the piece from start to finish. Even the title was lost. So Austin and the family are renaming the mural.
“Process as Practice: Reimagining the Lost Hardrick Mural” is a multi-generational approach to public art. It creates context through community engagement that gives Hardrick’s descendants agency in reimagining the life of an artwork that deserves preservation and attention due to its relevance and meaning for all of us.
About the Artist: Kaila Austin is an artist and public historian from Indianapolis. She attended Indiana University, triple majoring in Art History, African American Studies, and Painting. Since 2019, she has run her own historic consulting organization, Rogue Preservation Services. For the last two years, she has been working with six Reconstruction-era African American neighborhoods to record, preserve and uplift the stories of the US Colored Troops on the Southeast side of Indianapolis. The public arts plays a major role in telling these stories and reimagining our city through a Black lens. Austin is an Artist in Residence in Big Car Collaborative’s long-term residency program on the southeast side of Indianapolis.

This exhibit is made possible by The Efroymson Family Fund, The Arts Council of Indianapolis, The City of Indianapolis, Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Fund and Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Located in the Tube Factory main gallery
Visit us:
Wednesday -Friday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturday & Sunday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Tube Factory is also open until 10 p.m. each First Friday.
Closed holidays
About Big Car: Big Car Collaborative brings art to people and people to art, sparking creativity in lives to support communities. As a nonprofit arts organization, we utilize tools of culture and creativity to build community and social cohesion — connecting people as a way to boost quality of life. 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. More information at bigcar.org.

About the Southside US Colored Troop Coalition:
The Southside US Colored Troops Coalition is founded and maintained by the descendants of African American Civil War Veterans who founded six Reconstruction era communities in Southeast Indianapolis. With over 250 descendant families still living on the lots their ancestors purchased after the Civil War, they are some of the oldest African American communities in the United States. The mission of this organization is to preserve, uplift and revitalize the communities, families and stories of these brave men who lived and died for Black Freedom.

About Norwood: The Norwood neighborhood was a Freetown founded and built by Civil War veterans in the 1860s. Survivors of the Civil War from the 28th Regiment returned to Indianapolis in 1866 as newly freed slaves. And they settled further east along Prospect Street, eventually expanding into what became known as Norwood.
Their living descendants have long advocated for the perseveration and recognition of their community. The homes in Norwood have stayed within families for generations.
Norwood’s first church, Penick Chapel AME Zion, was founded in 1889 by former Kentucky slave and Civil War veteran Rev. Sydney Penick

About the WPA: The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads. It was set up on May 6, 1935, by presidential order, as a key part of the Second New Deal.In one of its most famous projects, Federal Project Number One, the WPA employed musicians, artists, writers, actors and directors in arts, drama, media, and literacy projects. The five projects dedicated to these were the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP), the Historical Records Survey (HRS), the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), the Federal Music Project (FMP), and the Federal Art Project (FAP). In the Historical Records Survey, for instance, many former slaves in the South were interviewed; these documents are of immense importance to American history. Theater and music groups toured throughout the United States and gave more than 225,000 performances. Archaeological investigations under the WPA were influential in the rediscovery of pre-Columbian Native American cultures, and the development of professional archaeology in the US.

Ink Workshop with Brittany Fukushima
2023-10-14 12:00 - 14:00 | 1 Monument Circle, South Facing Steps, United States
Join SPARK artist in residence Brittany Fukushima for an all-levels ink painting workshop. In this workshop, you’ll learn basic ink techniques and how to paint intuitively using colors handmade by the artist. See the raw materials that go into ink-making and leave inspired to create your own. All materials are provided!
SPARK is a partnership with Downtown Indy, the City of Indianapolis, and the Indiana War Memorials Commission — and funded by the Capital Improvements Board. It is a continuation of our work last year and in 2015 on the Circle.
At Big Car, we approach our work at the Circle as a site- and community-specific socially engaged art and creative placemaking project. The SPARK on the Circle pop-up park was collaboratively designed with Indianapolis-based Merritt Chase to be a restorative public place where people of all walks of life can relax, play, socialize, and engage with art and artists in the heart of our city.

Sofar Sounds at SPARK
2023-10-14 20:00 - 22:00 | 1 Monument Circle, South Facing Steps, United States
WHAT’S A SOFAR SOUNDS SHOW?
Sofar transforms everyday spaces – like a rooftop or art gallery – and turns them into captivating, intimate venues for secret, live music performances, creating an immersive experience that brings guests and artists closer together. Each Sofar is small, and typically features three diverse acts, with no headliner.

SPARK is a partnership with Downtown Indy, the City of Indianapolis, and the Indiana War Memorials Commission — and funded by the Capital Improvements Board. It is a continuation of our work last year and in 2015 on the Circle.
At Big Car, we approach our work at the Circle as a site- and community-specific socially engaged art and creative placemaking project. The SPARK on the Circle pop-up park was collaboratively designed with Indianapolis-based Merritt Chase to be a restorative public place where people of all walks of life can relax, play, socialize, and engage with art and artists in the heart of our city.

Plein Air Painting with Brittany Fukushima
2023-10-16 16:00 - 18:00 | 1 Monument Circle, South Facing Steps, United States
Join SPARK artist in residence Brittany Fukushima for a plein air painting session. Use painting (or drawing) as a way to observe and document your surroundings. Brittany will walk you through how to select a good composition and basic block-in strategies to begin your painting.

SPARK is a partnership with Downtown Indy, the City of Indianapolis, and the Indiana War Memorials Commission — and funded by the Capital Improvements Board. It is a continuation of our work last year and in 2015 on the Circle.
At Big Car, we approach our work at the Circle as a site- and community-specific socially engaged art and creative placemaking project. The SPARK on the Circle pop-up park was collaboratively designed with Indianapolis-based Merritt Chase to be a restorative public place where people of all walks of life can relax, play, socialize, and engage with art and artists in the heart of our city.

Drum Circle with Rob Funkhouser
2023-10-18 13:00 - 14:00 | 1 Monument Circle, South Facing Steps, United States
Come join Rob Funkhouser from Rhythm Discovery for a drum circle on the Circle!

For this activity, participants will get the opportunity to learn how to express themselves on hand drums and explore the basics of playing with other people. Working with Rob, participants will begin making sounds on the instruments and learn some basic rhythms inspired by traditional music.SPARK is a partnership with Downtown Indy, the City of Indianapolis, and the Indiana War Memorials Commission — and funded by the Capital Improvements Board. It is a continuation of our work last year and in 2015 on the Circle.
SPARK is a partnership with Downtown Indy, the City of Indianapolis, and the Indiana War Memorials Commission — and funded by the Capital Improvements Board. It is a continuation of our work last year and in 2015 on the Circle.
At Big Car, we approach our work at the Circle as a site- and community-specific socially engaged art and creative placemaking project. The SPARK on the Circle pop-up park was collaboratively designed with Indianapolis-based Merritt Chase to be a restorative public place where people of all walks of life can relax, play, socialize, and engage with art and artists in the heart of our city.

Amulet Making with Rachel Leah Cohen
2023-10-18 16:00 - 18:00 | 1 Monument Circle, South Facing Steps, United States
Throughout the Jewish diaspora, people have created small pouch amulets to hold anything with protective energy and value. These are often made with everyday materials already on hand: medicinal plants, salt, metal, stones, and symbolic objects. The recipes and the names for these amulets vary by place. In Ladino-speaking Sephardic communities, they are called “bulsika” and in Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi communities, “baytelech.” The ingredients connect us to our ancestors, the environment, and the places we live. The pouch can be worn on the body, kept in a pocket, or hung up in the home. Come make an amulet for yourself or as a gift for someone else, as an embodied ritual of care, connection, and protection.
About: Rachel Leah Cohn is a visual artist and educator based in Indianapolis. Her muliti-disciplinary practice is concerned with themes of communication, mythology and rituals. She exhibits her work internationally and teaches at Ball State University in Muncie, IN.
SPARK is a partnership with Downtown Indy, the City of Indianapolis, and the Indiana War Memorials Commission — and funded by the Capital Improvements Board. It is a continuation of our work last year and in 2015 on the Circle.
At Big Car, we approach our work at the Circle as a site- and community-specific socially engaged art and creative placemaking project. The SPARK on the Circle pop-up park was collaboratively designed with Indianapolis-based Merritt Chase to be a restorative public place where people of all walks of life can relax, play, socialize, and engage with art and artists in the heart of our city.

NIGHTJAR, a poetry series
2023-10-18 19:00 - 21:00 | IN
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.

October featured poet-Mitchell L. H. Douglas
Mitchell L. H. Douglas’s most recent books of poetry are dying in the scarecrow’s arms and blak al-fə bet\, winner of the Persea Books Lexi Rudnitsky/Editor’s Choice Award. He is a cofounder of the Affrilachian Poets, a Cave Canem graduate, and Associate Professor of English at IUI.

Circle Side Chats with Stephen Lane
2023-10-19 12:00 - 13:00 | 1 Monument Circle, South Facing Steps, United States
The Drag Queens of Indiana Avenue
In 1933, Indianapolis hosted its first pansy ball with great fanfare in a jazz club along Indiana Avenue. Stephen Lane presents his graduate work at IUPUI in the contributions of LGBTQ+ people to the social and cultural development of Indianapolis.
Bio: Stephen Lane is a librarian who received his Masters in Library and Information Science and a Masters in Public History at IUPUI in 2018. He is passionate about labor history, LGBTQ+ history and Black history and how those histories intersect and intertwine. He lives in the Haughville neighborhood and serves on the Indianapolis Public Library board of trustees. Stephen enjoys riding his bike and attending art shows around Indianapolis.
SPARK is a partnership with Downtown Indy, the City of Indianapolis, and the Indiana War Memorials Commission — and funded by the Capital Improvements Board. It is a continuation of our work last year and in 2015 on the Circle.
At Big Car, we approach our work at the Circle as a site- and community-specific socially engaged art and creative placemaking project. The SPARK on the Circle pop-up park was collaboratively designed with Indianapolis-based Merritt Chase to be a restorative public place where people of all walks of life can relax, play, socialize, and engage with art and artists in the heart of our city.

Wagon of Wonders Puppet Show
2023-10-19 16:00 - 18:00 | 1 Monument Circle, South Facing Steps, United States
Human Size Puppets! Hand Puppets! All made by Indiana native Jenny Ollikainen, have united to tell a story about Monument Circle. Written by Big Car long term residency artist Sylvia Thomas, join us for 15 minutes at the top of the hour and puppet making in-between shows at the Wagon of Wonders at SPARK.

SPARK is a partnership with Downtown Indy, the City of Indianapolis, and the Indiana War Memorials Commission — and funded by the Capital Improvements Board. It is a continuation of our work last year and in 2015 on the Circle.
At Big Car, we approach our work at the Circle as a site- and community-specific socially engaged art and creative placemaking project. The SPARK on the Circle pop-up park was collaboratively designed with Indianapolis-based Merritt Chase to be a restorative public place where people of all walks of life can relax, play, socialize, and engage with art and artists in the heart of our city.

Costume Pet Parade!
2023-10-22 12:00 - 14:00 | 1 Monument Circle, South Facing Steps, United States
Join us for a spooktacular event: The Halloween Pet Costume Parade!
Get ready to show off your furry friends in their most creative Halloween costumes! Whether your pet is a ghostly ghoul, a bewitching witch, or a superhero pup, this parade is the perfect opportunity to celebrate Halloween with your beloved animal companions!
Highlights:
– Pet Costume Parade
– Costume Contest with Prizes
– Trick-or-Treat at the Welcome Wagon
– Polaroid Pet Pictures
Prizes will be awarded in various categories, including:
– Best Costume
– Most Original Costume
– Funniest Costume
– Scariest Costume
Admission is free, and no registration is required. Just come and have a howling good time with your pets and fellow animal lovers. We can’t wait to see the fantastic costumes and share some Halloween joy with our four-legged friends.

Artist Hangout
2023-10-22 12:00 - 14:00 | 1 Monument Circle, South Facing Steps, United States
Artist hangout is a casual networking event for artists and creatives hosted by Dai. This event will take place at SPARK on the circle on Sunday, October 22nd from 4-6 pm. During this two hour event you’ll be able to network, socialize and hangout with other creatives. Spark fellow, Dai, will also be conducting short interviews with artists to post on social media.
SPARK is a partnership with Downtown Indy, the City of Indianapolis, and the Indiana War Memorials Commission — and funded by the Capital Improvements Board. It is a continuation of our work last year and in 2015 on the Circle.
At Big Car, we approach our work at the Circle as a site- and community-specific socially engaged art and creative placemaking project. The SPARK on the Circle pop-up park was collaboratively designed with Indianapolis-based Merritt Chase to be a restorative public place where people of all walks of life can relax, play, socialize, and engage with art and artists in the heart of our city.

Lunch Break Live with Rob Funkhouser
2023-10-24 12:00 - 14:00 | 1 Monument Circle, South Facing Steps, United States
Rob Funkhouser is a composer, performer, and instrument builder who can never quite sit still. His work is concerned with ideas of place, memory, and pattern and he is interested in interrogating the interstitial spaces between established genres.
He holds an M.M. from Butler University in Music Composition, and most recently completed Peace of Mind, Speed of Thought for Classical Music Indy. He has released recordings, curated performances, and installed works in many places both around Indianapolis and in many other parts of the country. In 2020, he began a long-term living residency with Big Car as part of their APLR program, and served as a resident artist for Cat Head Press in collaboration with Landon Caldwell. He also serves as Education Manager for the Rhythm Discovery Center, where he runs public programming for schools and community members. He has collaborated with diverse groups including Forward Motion, Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, No Exit Theater, and Chicago-based director Ryan Gleason.

SPARK is a partnership with Downtown Indy, the City of Indianapolis, and the Indiana War Memorials Commission — and funded by the Capital Improvements Board. It is a continuation of our work last year and in 2015 on the Circle.
At Big Car, we approach our work at the Circle as a site- and community-specific socially engaged art and creative placemaking project. The SPARK on the Circle pop-up park was collaboratively designed with Indianapolis-based Merritt Chase to be a restorative public place where people of all walks of life can relax, play, socialize, and engage with art and artists in the heart of our city.

Drum Circle with Rob Funkhouser
2023-10-25 13:00 - 14:00 | 1 Monument Circle, South Facing Steps, United States
Come join Rob Funkhouser from Rhythm Discovery for a drum circle on the Circle!

For this activity, participants will get the opportunity to learn how to express themselves on hand drums and explore the basics of playing with other people. Working with Rob, participants will begin making sounds on the instruments and learn some basic rhythms inspired by traditional music.
SPARK is a partnership with Downtown Indy, the City of Indianapolis, and the Indiana War Memorials Commission — and funded by the Capital Improvements Board. It is a continuation of our work last year and in 2015 on the Circle.
At Big Car, we approach our work at the Circle as a site- and community-specific socially engaged art and creative placemaking project. The SPARK on the Circle pop-up park was collaboratively designed with Indianapolis-based Merritt Chase to be a restorative public place where people of all walks of life can relax, play, socialize, and engage with art and artists in the heart of our city.

John Wesley Hardrick mural live painting
2023-10-25 15:00 - 18:00 | IN
Artist Kaila Austin will have a series of live painting sessions of the John Wesley Hardrick mural open to the public at Tube Factory artspace: October 25, 3-6pm, November 1, 3-6pm, November 8, 3-6pm and November 22, 3-6pm. She will also be at SPARK on the Circle at Monument Circle painting the Harwick Mural on October 13, 2-5pm.

The exhibit will run through December 17 with Tube Factory artspace’s regular business hours Wednesday-Friday, 9am-6pm, Saturdays and Sundays 9am-3pm.

As the United States continues to face its history of enslavement, oppression, and exclusion of Black Americans in museums and other arenas of power and recognition, “Process as Practice: Reimagining the Lost Hardrick Mural” is impactful and unique. The exhibit is part of an ongoing partnership between artist Kaila Austin; the Norwood community on the southeast side of Indianapolis, and the family of Indiana’s Harlem Renaissance painter, John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968).

Over the last three years, Austin worked with the descendants of the United States Colored Troops (African-American Civil War veterans), to recover and record their family histories as their communities shift due to gentrification. Austin is working most closely with Norwood — a neighborhood less than a mile from her childhood home.

In February of 2021, Austin learned that the new city morgue would be built on the Hardrick homesite, encroaching on Norwood while the neighborhood celebrated its 150th anniversary. Due to community activism from the descendants, the City canceled morgue construction. Since then, Austin and the community have worked together to reimagine the Hardrick homesite. The mural featured in this exhibit is part of that reimagining. For Austin, this entire project is work that’s transient and malleable. It changes as the research becomes more clear (or muddy).

This mural — recreated by Austin with the support of Hardrick’s family — was originally painted at Crispus Attucks High School in 1934 as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) program. Hardrick was the only African American artist to be selected in the state. The mural depicted four foundry workers toiling in the heat. The imagery reflected Hardrick’s lived experience working at a foundry in Norwood while he created the mural. However, the principal at Crispus Attucks wanted Black children to aspire to work in professions outside of manual labor, professions that historically excluded Black Americans. For this reason, the school put the mural in the basement, never to be seen again.

Austin reimagined what the mural looked like by working with the Hardrick family and the descendants in Norwood. They explored his diaries and sketchbooks and looked at Hardrick’s mentors and peers — and the community that raised him. The exhibit gives us a chance to step into Hardrick’s world and see how he created the piece from start to finish. Even the title of the piece was lost. So Austin and the family are renaming the mural.

A collaboration between Hardrick, his descendants, the Norwood community, and Austin, “Process as Practice: Reimagining the Lost Hardrick Mural” is a multi-generational approach to public art. It creates context through community engagement that gives Hardrick’s descendants agency in reimagining the life of an artwork that deserves preservation and attention due to its relevance and meaning for all of us.

About the Artist:
Kaila Austin is an artist and public historian from Indianapolis. She attended Indiana University, triple majoring in Art History, African American Studies, and Painting. Since 2019, she has run her own historic consulting organization, Rogue Preservation Services. For the last two years, she has been working with six Reconstruction-era African American neighborhoods to record, preserve and uplift the stories of the US Colored Troops on the Southeast side of Indianapolis. The public arts plays a major role in telling these stories and reimagining our city through a Black lens. Austin is an Artist in Residence in Big Car Collaborative’s long-term residency program on the southeast side of Indianapolis.

This exhibit is made possible by The Efroymson Family Fund, The Arts Council of Indianapolis, The City of Indianapolis, Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Fund and Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Main 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

About the Southside US Colored Troop Coalition:
The Southside US Colored Troops Coalition is founded and maintained by the descendants of African American Civil War Veterans who founded six Reconstruction era communities in Southeast Indianapolis. With over 250 descendant families still living on the lots their ancestors purchased after the Civil War, they are some of the oldest African American communities in the United States. The mission of this organization is to preserve, uplift and revitalize the communities, families and stories of these brave men who lived and died for Black Freedom.

About Norwood
The Norwood neighborhood was a Freetown founded and built by Civil War veterans in the 1860s. Survivors of the Civil War from the 28th Regiment returned to Indianapolis in 1866 as newly freed slaves. And they settled further east along Prospect Street, eventually expanding into what became known as Norwood.
Their living descendants have long advocated for the perseveration and recognition of their community. The homes in Norwood have stayed within families for generations.
Norwood’s first church, Penick Chapel AME Zion, was founded in 1889 by former Kentucky slave and Civil War veteran Rev. Sydney Penick

About the WPA
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads. It was set up on May 6, 1935, by presidential order, as a key part of the Second New Deal.
In one of its most famous projects, Federal Project Number One, the WPA employed musicians, artists, writers, actors and directors in arts, drama, media, and literacy projects. The five projects dedicated to these were the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP), the Historical Records Survey (HRS), the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), the Federal Music Project (FMP), and the Federal Art Project (FAP). In the Historical Records Survey, for instance, many former slaves in the South were interviewed; these documents are of immense importance to American history. Theater and music groups toured throughout the United States and gave more than 225,000 performances. Archaeological investigations under the WPA were influential in the rediscovery of pre-Columbian Native American cultures, and the development of professional archaeology in the US.

Graffiti Knitting with Mary Jo Bayliss
2023-10-25 16:00 - 18:00 | IN
A 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.
SPARK is a partnership with Downtown Indy, the City of Indianapolis, and the Indiana War Memorials Commission — and funded by the Capital Improvements Board. It is a continuation of our work last year and in 2015 on the Circle.
At Big Car, we approach our work at the Circle as a site- and community-specific socially engaged art and creative placemaking project. The SPARK on the Circle pop-up park was collaboratively designed with Indianapolis-based Merritt Chase to be a restorative public place where people of all walks of life can relax, play, socialize, and engage with art and artists in the heart of our city.

African Dance with Uzuri Asad
2023-10-26 16:00 - 18:00 | 1 Monument Circle, South Facing Steps, 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 of the circle!

SPARK is a partnership with Downtown Indy, the City of Indianapolis, and the Indiana War Memorials Commission — and funded by the Capital Improvements Board. It is a continuation of our work last year and in 2015 on the Circle.
At Big Car, we approach our work at the Circle as a site- and community-specific socially engaged art and creative placemaking project. The SPARK on the Circle pop-up park was collaboratively designed with Indianapolis-based Merritt Chase to be a restorative public place where people of all walks of life can relax, play, socialize, and engage with art and artists in the heart of our city.

Circle SPARK Fest
2023-10-28 11:00 - 18:00 | 1 Monument Circle, South Facing Steps, United States
Have yourself a Pumpkin carving, pottery making, face painting, UBE Fest loving good time at Circle SPARK Fest!
This two-day fall festival features live music by an amazing array of local musicians, delicious food, artisan vendors, and hands-on creative activities led by Indianapolis artists. The festival, which runs from 11 am until 6 pm each day, is free to attend. And it takes place at the pop-up park on the southwest quadrant of Monument Circle that has been closed to traffic this summer.
(MC- Tennah):
10/28 Sat
11-11:45 – Nat Russell and Landon Caldwell
12-12:45 – Freetown Village Singers
1-1:45 – Naomi Pulver
2-3 Allison Victoria
3:30-4:30 – D’Classics
5-6 – Bashiri Asad
Activity Schedule (all free to participate):
10/28 Sat
12-5pm Henna with Pam
12-5pm Indy Face Painting
11-6pm Making Pottery with Stephanie Williams
11-6pm Pumpkin Carving
4-6pm Candle Making with Freetown Village
New this year: SPARK Fest’s organizers at Big Car Collaborative and Downtown Indy are teaming up with UbeFest — an event that’s all about the tasty purple yam often used in desserts in Filipino cuisine called ube. UbeFest brings more than 30 food, artist, and unique retail vendors to the Circle for the festival. Many will showcase, among their offerings, a variety of tasty ube-based treats.

Circle SPARK Fest
2023-10-29 11:00 - 18:00 | 1 Monument Circle, South Facing Steps, United States
Have yourself a Pumpkin carving, pottery making, face painting, UBE Fest loving good time at Circle SPARK Fest!
This two-day fall festival features live music by an amazing array of local musicians, delicious food, artisan vendors, and hands-on creative activities led by Indianapolis artists. The festival, which runs from 11 am until 6 pm each day, is free to attend. And it takes place at the pop-up park on the southwest quadrant of Monument Circle that has been closed to traffic this summer.
Music Line-Up
Tennah Host MC
10/29 Sun
11-11:45 – Fred Miller
12-12:45 – Tinikling Cultural Dance
1-2 – The Roundups
2:15-3:15 -Tubbles the Band
3:30-4:30 – Forgotten Tribe
5-6 – Exceso Rock Band
10/29 Sun
12-5pm Henna with Pam
12-5pm Face Painting with Stephanie Zki
11-6pm Derek Tudor Selfie 360 and Mini VanGo
11-6pm Ceramics with Stephanie Williams
11-6pm Pumpkin Carving
New this year: SPARK Fest’s organizers at Big Car Collaborative and Downtown Indy are teaming up with UbeFest — an event that’s all about the tasty purple yam often used in desserts in Filipino cuisine called ube. UbeFest brings more than 30 food, artist, and unique retail vendors to the Circle for the festival. Many will showcase, among their offerings, a variety of tasty ube-based treats.

Día de los Muertos Altar
2023-10-30 18:00 - 20:00 | 1 Monument Circle, South Facing Steps, United States
Join the Mexico Sister City Committee in an exciting and culturally enriching way for Dia de los Muertos at Spark on the Circle. Dia de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead, is a significant Mexican holiday that honors and remembers loved ones who have passed away. This event aims to bring our community together in a meaningful and festive way.
The Dia de los Muertos Altar Event will feature a beautifully crafted traditional Mexican altar, showcasing elements essential to this important cultural celebration.

Lunch Break Live-Progressive Knife
2023-10-31 12:00 - 13:00 | 1 Monument Circle, South Facing Steps, United States
Get geared up for Halloween with Indianapolis’s own rock band Progressive Knife.

John Wesley Hardrick mural live painting with Kaila Austin
2023-11-01 15:00 - 18:00, 2023-11-08 15:00 - 18:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
Artist Kaila Austin will have a series of live painting sessions of the John Wesley Hardrick mural open to the public at Tube Factory artspace: November 8, 3-6pm and November 22, 3-6pm. She will also be at SPARK on the Circle at Monument Circle painting the Harwick Mural on October 13, 2-5pm.

The exhibit will run through December 17 with Tube Factory artspace’s regular business hours Wednesday-Friday, 9am-6pm, Saturdays and Sundays 9am-3pm.

As the United States continues to face its history of enslavement, oppression, and exclusion of Black Americans in museums and other arenas of power and recognition, “Process as Practice: Reimagining the Lost Hardrick Mural” is impactful and unique. The exhibit is part of an ongoing partnership between artist Kaila Austin; the Norwood community on the southeast side of Indianapolis, and the family of Indiana’s Harlem Renaissance painter, John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968).

Over the last three years, Austin worked with the descendants of the United States Colored Troops (African-American Civil War veterans), to recover and record their family histories as their communities shift due to gentrification. Austin is working most closely with Norwood — a neighborhood less than a mile from her childhood home.

In February of 2021, Austin learned that the new city morgue would be built on the Hardrick homesite, encroaching on Norwood while the neighborhood celebrated its 150th anniversary. Due to community activism from the descendants, the City canceled morgue construction. Since then, Austin and the community have worked together to reimagine the Hardrick homesite. The mural featured in this exhibit is part of that reimagining. For Austin, this entire project is work that’s transient and malleable. It changes as the research becomes more clear (or muddy).

This mural — recreated by Austin with the support of Hardrick’s family — was originally painted at Crispus Attucks High School in 1934 as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) program. Hardrick was the only African American artist to be selected in the state. The mural depicted four foundry workers toiling in the heat. The imagery reflected Hardrick’s lived experience working at a foundry in Norwood while he created the mural. However, the principal at Crispus Attucks wanted Black children to aspire to work in professions outside of manual labor, professions that historically excluded Black Americans. For this reason, the school put the mural in the basement, never to be seen again.

Austin reimagined what the mural looked like by working with the Hardrick family and the descendants in Norwood. They explored his diaries and sketchbooks and looked at Hardrick’s mentors and peers — and the community that raised him. The exhibit gives us a chance to step into Hardrick’s world and see how he created the piece from start to finish. Even the title of the piece was lost. So Austin and the family are renaming the mural.

A collaboration between Hardrick, his descendants, the Norwood community, and Austin, “Process as Practice: Reimagining the Lost Hardrick Mural” is a multi-generational approach to public art. It creates context through community engagement that gives Hardrick’s descendants agency in reimagining the life of an artwork that deserves preservation and attention due to its relevance and meaning for all of us.

About the Artist:
Kaila Austin is an artist and public historian from Indianapolis. She attended Indiana University, triple majoring in Art History, African American Studies, and Painting. Since 2019, she has run her own historic consulting organization, Rogue Preservation Services. For the last two years, she has been working with six Reconstruction-era African American neighborhoods to record, preserve and uplift the stories of the US Colored Troops on the Southeast side of Indianapolis. The public arts plays a major role in telling these stories and reimagining our city through a Black lens. Austin is an Artist in Residence in Big Car Collaborative’s long-term residency program on the southeast side of Indianapolis.

This exhibit is made possible by The Efroymson Family Fund, The Arts Council of Indianapolis, The City of Indianapolis, Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Fund and Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Main 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

About the Southside US Colored Troop Coalition:
The Southside US Colored Troops Coalition is founded and maintained by the descendants of African American Civil War Veterans who founded six Reconstruction era communities in Southeast Indianapolis. With over 250 descendant families still living on the lots their ancestors purchased after the Civil War, they are some of the oldest African American communities in the United States. The mission of this organization is to preserve, uplift and revitalize the communities, families and stories of these brave men who lived and died for Black Freedom.

About Norwood
The Norwood neighborhood was a Freetown founded and built by Civil War veterans in the 1860s. Survivors of the Civil War from the 28th Regiment returned to Indianapolis in 1866 as newly freed slaves. And they settled further east along Prospect Street, eventually expanding into what became known as Norwood.
Their living descendants have long advocated for the perseveration and recognition of their community. The homes in Norwood have stayed within families for generations.
Norwood’s first church, Penick Chapel AME Zion, was founded in 1889 by former Kentucky slave and Civil War veteran Rev. Sydney Penick

About the WPA
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads. It was set up on May 6, 1935, by presidential order, as a key part of the Second New Deal.
In one of its most famous projects, Federal Project Number One, the WPA employed musicians, artists, writers, actors and directors in arts, drama, media, and literacy projects. The five projects dedicated to these were the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP), the Historical Records Survey (HRS), the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), the Federal Music Project (FMP), and the Federal Art Project (FAP). In the Historical Records Survey, for instance, many former slaves in the South were interviewed; these documents are of immense importance to American history. Theater and music groups toured throughout the United States and gave more than 225,000 performances. Archaeological investigations under the WPA were influential in the rediscovery of pre-Columbian Native American cultures, and the development of professional archaeology in the US.

Sylvia Thomas:Letters To A Haunted House
2023-11-03 - 2023-12-18 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
Many have experienced grief with the loss of someone close to them, but what if that someone was yourself?
Transgender people have lived and existed in many forms for many centuries. Today, there are many possible (physical, emotional, and mental) changes made by Trans people to feel affirmed in their own body. To “come out” or “transition” has required some Trans people to abandon a self they do not recognize. This act of abandonment and process of grieving one’s self is common for many Queer and Trans people who were not raised in affirming environments.
The artist believes it is up to each Queer and Trans person how they may grieve or celebrate their life before “coming out.” This exhibition is how the artist has chosen to honor a life she no longer lives. In this experience, there are 4 letters written by the artist, Sylvia, addressed to her deadname, Seth. Each letter explores the complicated language and emotions tethered to grief (Anger, Depression, Guilt, Acceptance). Amongst the letters are pieces of furniture and artifacts retrieved from the artist’s childhood home she abandoned in order to stay alive. While wondering who she is today, her work mourns the life she didn’t keep.

Opening Celebration of Terri Sisson Park
2023-11-03 17:00 - 22:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
Join us on November 3 as we celebrate our new outdoor space on the Tube Factory campus and thank the many people who made this restorative outdoor space possible. Linked to our monthly First Friday open house, we’ll offer brief remarks at 6 pm, live music, and tours.
Terri Sisson Park, designed by Rundell Ernstberger’s Daniel Liggett in close collaboration with Big Car Collaborative staff artists, features many ways for visitors to experience and enjoy art and nature while also socializing with others. It’s open to the public during daylight hours.
Terri Sisson Park is named after the mother of Big Car co-founder and Tube Factory curator, Shauta Marsh. Dedicating the park to Terri, who passed away in 2022, is especially fitting because the park is a shrine to motherhood.
“Otherhood and Motherhood are two main themes that thread through this greenspace,” Marsh says. “It’s a place for people who have no one. It’s a space for people who have more people in their life than they know what to do with.”
In addition to the opening of the park, we celebrate the artists of our long-term residency program on the block — now at 18 affordable homes — with an exhibition in a house across from Tube Factory. And we’ll feature exhibitions in two Tube Factory galleries, and Guichelaar Gallery. Local food trucks, Tortas Gaucho and Hert’s BBQ, will be on site for food options.
“My mother was a bottomless ocean of love and patience,” Marsh says. “She saw the best in people. And that’s the spirit the world really needs. That’s why we will celebrate her with the naming of this park. It was the meaning of her to hold a space for everyone, for total strangers, for friends, for family.”
6 pm: Brief remarks at the Chicken Chapel of Love followed by performance
Dusk: Firedancer
7 pm: Live music from Scrapper & Skeleton
8pm: Bitterproof
Tours with Big Car staff artists throughout the evening
Special thanks to Efroymson Family Fund for making the naming possible. And thank you to Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation for major support of our art-filled outdoor space.

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?”

John Wesley Hardrick mural live painting with Kaila Austin
2023-11-22 15:00 - 18:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
Artist Kaila Austin will have a series of live painting sessions of the John Wesley Hardrick mural open to the public at Tube Factory artspace. She will also be at SPARK on the Circle at Monument Circle painting the Harwick Mural on October 13, 2-5pm.

The exhibit will run through December 17 with Tube Factory artspace’s regular business hours Wednesday-Friday, 9am-6pm, Saturdays and Sundays 9am-3pm.

As the United States continues to face its history of enslavement, oppression, and exclusion of Black Americans in museums and other arenas of power and recognition, “Process as Practice: Reimagining the Lost Hardrick Mural” is impactful and unique. The exhibit is part of an ongoing partnership between artist Kaila Austin; the Norwood community on the southeast side of Indianapolis, and the family of Indiana’s Harlem Renaissance painter, John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968).

Over the last three years, Austin worked with the descendants of the United States Colored Troops (African-American Civil War veterans), to recover and record their family histories as their communities shift due to gentrification. Austin is working most closely with Norwood — a neighborhood less than a mile from her childhood home.

In February of 2021, Austin learned that the new city morgue would be built on the Hardrick homesite, encroaching on Norwood while the neighborhood celebrated its 150th anniversary. Due to community activism from the descendants, the City canceled morgue construction. Since then, Austin and the community have worked together to reimagine the Hardrick homesite. The mural featured in this exhibit is part of that reimagining. For Austin, this entire project is work that’s transient and malleable. It changes as the research becomes more clear (or muddy).

This mural — recreated by Austin with the support of Hardrick’s family — was originally painted at Crispus Attucks High School in 1934 as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) program. Hardrick was the only African American artist to be selected in the state. The mural depicted four foundry workers toiling in the heat. The imagery reflected Hardrick’s lived experience working at a foundry in Norwood while he created the mural. However, the principal at Crispus Attucks wanted Black children to aspire to work in professions outside of manual labor, professions that historically excluded Black Americans. For this reason, the school put the mural in the basement, never to be seen again.

Austin reimagined what the mural looked like by working with the Hardrick family and the descendants in Norwood. They explored his diaries and sketchbooks and looked at Hardrick’s mentors and peers — and the community that raised him. The exhibit gives us a chance to step into Hardrick’s world and see how he created the piece from start to finish. Even the title of the piece was lost. So Austin and the family are renaming the mural.

A collaboration between Hardrick, his descendants, the Norwood community, and Austin, “Process as Practice: Reimagining the Lost Hardrick Mural” is a multi-generational approach to public art. It creates context through community engagement that gives Hardrick’s descendants agency in reimagining the life of an artwork that deserves preservation and attention due to its relevance and meaning for all of us.

About the Artist:
Kaila Austin is an artist and public historian from Indianapolis. She attended Indiana University, triple majoring in Art History, African American Studies, and Painting. Since 2019, she has run her own historic consulting organization, Rogue Preservation Services. For the last two years, she has been working with six Reconstruction-era African American neighborhoods to record, preserve and uplift the stories of the US Colored Troops on the Southeast side of Indianapolis. The public arts plays a major role in telling these stories and reimagining our city through a Black lens. Austin is an Artist in Residence in Big Car Collaborative’s long-term residency program on the southeast side of Indianapolis.

This exhibit is made possible by The Efroymson Family Fund, The Arts Council of Indianapolis, The City of Indianapolis, Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Fund and Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Main 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

About the Southside US Colored Troop Coalition:
The Southside US Colored Troops Coalition is founded and maintained by the descendants of African American Civil War Veterans who founded six Reconstruction era communities in Southeast Indianapolis. With over 250 descendant families still living on the lots their ancestors purchased after the Civil War, they are some of the oldest African American communities in the United States. The mission of this organization is to preserve, uplift and revitalize the communities, families and stories of these brave men who lived and died for Black Freedom.

About Norwood
The Norwood neighborhood was a Freetown founded and built by Civil War veterans in the 1860s. Survivors of the Civil War from the 28th Regiment returned to Indianapolis in 1866 as newly freed slaves. And they settled further east along Prospect Street, eventually expanding into what became known as Norwood.
Their living descendants have long advocated for the perseveration and recognition of their community. The homes in Norwood have stayed within families for generations.
Norwood’s first church, Penick Chapel AME Zion, was founded in 1889 by former Kentucky slave and Civil War veteran Rev. Sydney Penick

About the WPA
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads. It was set up on May 6, 1935, by presidential order, as a key part of the Second New Deal.
In one of its most famous projects, Federal Project Number One, the WPA employed musicians, artists, writers, actors and directors in arts, drama, media, and literacy projects. The five projects dedicated to these were the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP), the Historical Records Survey (HRS), the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), the Federal Music Project (FMP), and the Federal Art Project (FAP). In the Historical Records Survey, for instance, many former slaves in the South were interviewed; these documents are of immense importance to American history. Theater and music groups toured throughout the United States and gave more than 225,000 performances. Archaeological investigations under the WPA were influential in the rediscovery of pre-Columbian Native American cultures, and the development of professional archaeology in the US.

An Ode to Norwood
2023-11-30 18:00 - 22:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
An Ode to Norwood

Closing Reception:
November 30th from 6 – 10pm

6:00 pm Doors open
6:30pm Gallery Tour
7:00 pm Comments and Announcements
Southside USCT Coalition Training Program – Begin December
Indianapolis Black Heritage Trail – Begin February
Smithsonian NMAAHC Archive Training Program – Begin April
7:15- 8:15 pm Performance with Joshua Thompson
8:30pm Gallery Tour
9:30pm Wind down
10:00 Close

Please join us for our closing Reception for Process as Practice: Reimagining the Hardrick Home on November 30th from 6 – 10pm.

November 30th will mark the 160th anniversary of Indiana’s 28th Colored Infantry, our African American soldiers from the Civil War. Norwood is one of the communities founded by these Veterans after their return home in 1865 and was the epicenter of Black Cultural life in Southeast Indianapolis from Reconstruction era (1870s) until the Harlem Renaissance (1920s). This exhibit honors one of Norwood’s first descendants, John Wesley Hardrick, and the work that he did to uplift his working class African American community through his paintings.

During this reception, enjoy gallery tours with artist Kaila Austin at 6:30pm and 8:30pm. Renowned Indianapolis Pianist Joshua Thompson accompanied by vocalist Okara Imani will be performing a suite of songs from the Civil War period, including a rendition of “An Ode to the Colored Troops that Died for our Freedom”. We hope to make this an opportunity to honor the US Colored Troops and their descendants who carry on their legacy today. Please bring flowers to decorate the exhibit hall.

Project Sponsors:
GangGang Black Joy Fund, Indiana Landmarks’ Black Heritage Preservation Program, Southside USCT Coalition, Khprew Integrated Fund

Meggan Gould: Sorry, No Pictures
2023-12-01 - 2024-01-16 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
Meggan Gould’s Sorry, No Pictures examines photographic tools and technologies and their constant teeter on the edge of obsolescence. Gould takes apart and re-contextualizes the smallest aspects of the medium, including the iconography of camera dials, the design of viewfinder patterns, and the ubiquitous Epson inkjet printer test pattern. Intertwined with personal narrative, the artist uses “playful resistance” in her work to question the role of corporations and manufacturers of photographic technologies — from Kodak to Flickr — in shaping photography, image-making, vision, and the language surrounding the medium. The exhibition makes clear how the personal and political converge in art-making, an important point at this moment when the true cost of photography’s cultural and ecological impact is coming into focus.
The complexity and sophistication of Gould’s work mirrors the maker, who as a visual artist, educator, writer, lecturer, and mother has lived many lives all at once. Sorry, No Pictures offers a beautiful, oftentimes laugh-out-loud funny, and ultimately hopeful narrative that art-making, by its nature, involves failure, change, and transcendence.
Published in book format in 2021, the exhibition Sorry, No Pictures brings the impact of scale, presence, and additional context to Gould’s artwork. You can read more about each piece in the copies of Sorry, No Pictures available in the gallery.

About the artist:
Meggan Gould (meggangould.net) is a photographer living and working outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she is an Associate Professor of Art at the University of New Mexico. Her multifaceted practice uses photography, drawing, sculpture, and installation in an open ended dissection of vision and photographic tools.

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.

NIGHTJAR, a poetry series with open mic
2023-12-20 19:00 - 21:00 | IN
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.
December’s featured poet is Lee Bennett
Poet and publisher, Bennett will read selections from her publication, Quotidian Magazine. Quotidian is a multi-volume series of creative responses to different prompts, all falling under the eponymous category of the quotidian. Its goal is to highlight repetitive, essential tasks, hard work that goes unnoticed, and the way these most basic acts connect and humble us, including objects and places that result from and are affected by these actions and how they surprise us with the unexpected depth of their meanings.
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 a poem or short piece that engages with the history of Indianapolis.

Julian Jamaal Jones: Take Me Back
2024-01-05 08:00 - 2024-03-24 15:00 | Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi), 1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN, 46203, United States
The abstract textiles and works on paper by Julian Jamaal Jones for his exhibit Take Me Back glean fragments from the songs, poetry, sounds, and his feelings for the Black church experience of the 1990s. The exhibit opens Jan. 5 and runs through March 24 at Tube Factory artspace. Chief curator, Shauta Marsh, was instantly drawn to the works, seeing an element of emotive storytelling in the abstract pieces — something that is quite unique.
Jones studied photography at Herron School of Art and Design then moved to working in textiles while working on his MFA at Cranbrook “His works are reverent. And, although Jones is tapping into a personal experience to create the works, the understanding and appeal of the works is universal. The desire for belonging and finding it through shared myth. The works speak to us all,” says Marsh.
Marsh felt it was important to have the voice of a curator who witnessed the change of mediums and the change in the artist. So Marsh and Jones asked Kat Gotfnett, Assistant Curator of Collections at Cranbrook Art Museum, to write about his work and what she sees in it and him. Cranbrook Art Museum recently purchased his work.
From Kat Gotfnett: “Home” often exists not as a structure but in spaces of community steeped in mutual reverence and a sense of belonging. In Take Me Back, Jones harnesses his nostalgia for one such place – the Black church of his youth. Growing up in the outskirts of Indianapolis during the 1990s, Jones navigated predominantly White spaces, making the church a sanctuary for him to engage with and celebrate both his religion and his Blackness. The church of Jones’s youth provided an atmosphere for creative inspiration and self-determination rooted in community, spirituality, and strong sensory experiences. In his first hometown exhibition, Jones channels his personal memories and nostalgic pangs into a new body of work that honors “the old Black church.”
In Jones’s quilts, he reimagines the traditional art form through the artist’s unique verbiage, drawing on improvisational styles of Black expression found in gospel music, as well as expressive abstract art. Gestural graphic drawings, which are foundational to his textiles, incorporate jewel tones and bold, animated markings. These drawings physicalize Jones’s emotional landscape as he recalls the spirit of the Black church, its fashionable congregants, dressed up for worship, and the Gospel choir’s coordinated robes and soulful, revelatory harmonies. These energetic renderings serve as an intimate yet abstracted record of the artist’s embodied experience with transformative spiritual and cultural forces.
Jones’s invigorating textiles further tap into the multisensory experience of church, introducing a more explicitly tactile element that also alludes to fiber as a medium connected to the body as a material of comfort and identity. Additionally, many of Jones’s quilts are created at an immersive scale recalling the grandiosity of religious architecture, the textiles adorning sacred spaces, and mesmerizing walls of stained glass. The work is partnered with pews sourced directly from a church, furthering the aesthetic church experience to bring viewers fully into fellowship with Jones through this reimagined sanctuary.
Through abstractly reconstructing a bygone spiritual moment through ancestral modes of expression, allusions to a sacred space, and celebration of Black culture, Take Me Back expresses the artist’s longing for not only a space, but a profound feeling.”

About the artist: Julian Jamaal Jones is a multidisciplinary artist and educator born and raised in Indianapolis, IN. Jones received his Bachelor’s degree in Photography in 2020 from the Herron School of Art + Design (Indianapolis) and a Master’s in Photography in 2022 from Cranbrook Academy of Art (Bloomfield Hills, MI), under the tutelage of Chris Fraser. Jones was the recipient of the 2023 CICF Artist Ambassadors Travel Grant, awarded ArtsConnect’s “Artist to Watch” in 2022, the recipient of the 2022 Playground Emerging Artist Fellowship, supported by the Knight Foundation and the recipient of the prestigious Museum Purchase Award from Cranbrook Art Museum in 2022. Jones’s works are in the permanent textile collections of Cranbrook Art Museum (Bloomfield Hills, MI), Richmond Art Museum (Richmond, IN) and The Book Tower Detroit (Detroit, MI).

Photo :Untitled, 2023, Photo collage from Julian Jamaal Jones’s personal collection

Key Dates
Opening reception: Jan. 5, 6-10 p.m.
Artist talk with Julian Jamaal Jones and Kat Gotfnett, Assistant Curator of Collections, Cranbrook Museum: March 23, 1pm
Closing reception: March 24, 5 p.m.
This exhibition was made possible by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Ruth Arts Foundation, Herron School of Art and Design, Arts Council of Indianapolis and the City of Indianapolis, Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation, Efroymson Family Fund and the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences.
