19 Jun 2024
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Tube Factory expansion to address Indy’s need for contemporary art museum

Tube Factory expansion to address Indy’s need for contemporary art museum

June 19, 2024 | Comments Closed | , , ,

Since 2016, Tube Factory artspace — a project of the 20-year-old nonprofit Big Car Collaborative — has served as a contemporary art mainstay that shares top-quality commissioned exhibitions while reimagining the role of cultural institutions in the community. 

Tube Factory is quadrupling its footprint by adding 40,000 square feet for art in a 125-year-old former dairy barn and industrial space adjacent to its current location just south of Downtown Indianapolis. 

In this building expected to open in 2025, visitors will experience five exhibition spaces for contemporary art — including an expansive main gallery for large-scale, immersive installations, 18 studios for artists, a large commercial kitchen offering culinary training and serving the on-site restaurant and bar, five business incubator storefronts, two audio recording studios (including the new home for Big Car’s 99.1 WQRT FM), and a large performing arts and event space.  

The sprawling historic building — already stabilized thanks to $1.8 million from a Lilly Endowment Inc. grant Big Car received in 2019 — will anchor the Tube Factory campus that includes a new sculpture park and 18 affordable homes for artists who give back to support the community through their work. 

Filling a contemporary art need

With this $8 million expansion, Big Car is making a focused investment in multi-disciplinary contemporary art by going all in to expand its 20-building Tube Factory campus as its city’s contemporary art museum. 

“We see now as the perfect time for us to further build a place that reimagines the role of the museum in the community while welcoming visitors from across the street and around the world,” said Big Car co-founder and director of programs and exhibitions, Shauta Marsh. “Pittsburgh has Mattress Factory. Bentonville has The Momentary. Detroit has MOCAD. Cleveland has SPACES. Indianapolis has Tube Factory.”

An important aspect that sets Tube Factory apart from other art spaces in Indianapolis is its approach to curated and commissioned art exhibitions. Tube Factory pays artists directly for producing their shows in the space (and has since its opening in 2016). This approach does not rely on gallery sales for compensating artists.

While the expansion of the Tube Factory builds a place for everyone Marsh said the additional building is also specifically planned to further support artists — with a strong emphasis on supporting artists of color. “This is a continuation of our long-term investment in artists and in strengthening our city overall,” Marsh continued. “Art is a great way to bring people together and help us see new perspectives. Artists are able to address topics and issues that aren’t always easy to talk about.” 

In many cities around the world — including Indianapolis — artists have worked hard to boost their neighborhoods and invest time and energy into studio buildings, only to be priced out once they’ve made the spaces more desirable. “That won’t happen here,” said Jim Walker, Big Car’s co-founder and executive director. “Ours is a long-term place, one of very few in our city where the arts nonprofit owns the real estate — ensuring the long-term sustainability of our artist-led campus as a civic commons for culture, creativity, and community.”

Making a long-term investment in art and artists

Many foundations and individuals have generously supported this contemporary art expansion. Major donors to this capital project so far include Lilly Endowment Inc., Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation, Efroymson Family Fund, Herbert Simon Family Foundation, The Indianapolis Foundation, Seybert Family Foundation, and Tube Processing Corporation. The project is also supported with financing through the City of Indianapolis’ New Markets Tax Credits program, managed by Indy CDE.

“We believe that these funds-and the amazing things that Big Car Collaborative will do with them-will help us in our aim to establish Indianapolis as a true center for the arts. A center that will not only bring more artists and art appreciators to our city, but also greatly benefit our existing communities,” Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett said at the building’s groundbreaking event on June 18. 

“This project is hugely important for our city for a number of reasons. Chief among them is the fact that the Tube Factory fills a significant gap in the art landscape of Indianapolis. It provides a space dedicated to contemporary art and its creators, who make up a crucial part of any thriving art scene,” Hogsett continued. 

“These artists also play a huge role in our communities. Through their art, they provide our residents with new avenues of understanding new ways of looking at the world around them. The art serves to bring us together and to help us understand one another. And this is paramount in today’s day and age, when we are simultaneously the most connected and the most divided we have ever been.”

Big Car utilized a bridge loan through IMPACT Central Indiana — a multi-member LLC created by Central Indiana Community Foundation (CICF), The Indianapolis Foundation, and Hamilton County Community Foundation — to get the next phase of construction rolling as Big Car continues to fundraise another $2 million. This fundraising is for repaying the bridge loan and starting a maintenance endowment. 

Individual donors who support the project now can see their contributions doubled by Efroymson Family Fund, which has committed a $50,000 matching grant. 

“We’re so very grateful and appreciative of the incredible, transformative support we’ve received so far,” said Big Car board president Jenifer Brown. “Our board and campaign committee have stepped up to help guide us through what’s really our first fundraising effort for a major capital project.” 

Indianapolis-based Jungclaus-Campbell is the general contractor on the renovations. Blackline Studio architects worked with Big Car staff on the design.

Another key aspect of Big Car’s Tube Factory expansion is that supporters can see their investment as benefiting Indianapolis artists for many years to come. The Tube Factory buildings aren’t part of another development that could someday change focus. 

“It’s very important that our nonprofit organization owns our buildings and that our galleries are dedicated to exhibitions,” said Marsh. “If we were filling a space for a real-estate developer or located in a privately-owned building, our long-term future would always be out of our control. And we might be asked to compromise on how we use the space or censor the content of our exhibits. That won’t happen here. This is a lasting investment in art and artists. It’s not about real estate or making money.”

Space for expanded exhibitions, programs

Backed by an array of local and national funders, Tube Factory has been commissioning work by artists from Indianapolis and around the world since it opened in 2016. Tube Factory’s commissioned artists receive Marsh’s support as a curator in addition to being paid to make new work that might not be possible to sell. Big Car will invest $10,000 to $50,000 in its exhibits that stay up for multiple months.

With a changing landscape for contemporary art that includes the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art (iMOCA) dissolving as an organization in 2020, Big Car and its supporters see a need to focus even more on bringing innovative and engaging work by today’s artists to a place visitors can enjoy.

As the former executive director and curator at iMOCA, Marsh brought contemporary art museum experience from the very beginning at Tube Factory. As they formed plans and launched programs on the Tube Factory campus, Marsh and Walker visited and researched contemporary art spaces all over the world — many of them adaptive reuse projects. 

The result is that a large portion of the bigger Tube Factory building will be dedicated to sharing even more of the kind of contemporary art exhibitions rarely seen in Indianapolis. Like Tube Factory now — which is open for visitors five days a week, including Saturdays and Sundays — this will all happen in a dedicated contemporary art building with regular museum hours for visits.

For example, in 2024, Tube Factory will share a major exhibition by Tulsa-based indigenous-American artist Elisa Harkins. Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Andy Warhol Foundation, Ruth Arts, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, this commissioned show will fill multiple galleries in Tube Factory for six months. Harkins, who recently received a $100,000 Creative Capital grant for a connected project, has been working with Marsh on this for six years.

The expansion will allow Tube Factory to offer more exhibitions like the one by Harkins — and keep them on display for longer.  Like many contemporary art museums around the world, Tube Factory commissions exhibits but does not typically collect work.

Additionally, the new space will offer a flexible, black box space for performing arts groups to put on shows, as well as for special events and mini conferences. The culinary center will provide an opportunity for a unique nonprofit restaurant and bar that will function as an ongoing community-focused art project.
“Artists aren’t always painters or musicians. Chefs, cooks, bakers, bartenders, and baristas are some of the most important and most loved artists in our lives every day,” Walker said. “Food brings people together like nothing else. It’s vital for sharing and celebrating our cultures and our creativity in delicious ways we enjoy.” 

History of Big Car and the Tube Factory campus

Added to in phases, the building under renovation started small in the late 1800s as a culinary space of sorts — a barn for Weber Dairy. It wound up part of a complex of properties owned by Tube Processing Corporation, a company still located in the neighborhood. Tube Processing donated the building to Big Car in 2021.

Big Car’s current community art center, Tube Factory, was originally a dairy bottling plant and, later, another of the buildings in the complex — also donated by Tube Processing to Big Car in 2015. Tube Factory is now a place where community organizations meet and people gather for cultural programs. 

“As a family and company with deep ties to the Garfield Park community and as longtime supporters of the arts, we’re thrilled to support Big Car’s important work at the Tube Factory campus,” said Katie Jacobson, President of Tube Processing and co-chair, with Ken Honeywell, of Big Car’s capital campaign committee. “And we’re glad the Nelson building — with so much history — is being preserved and adapted to be a one-of-a-kind place for art, artists, small business owners, and visitors from the neighborhood and beyond.”

In addition to hosting museum exhibits from artists based in Indianapolis and around the world, the current Tube Factory serves as home base with wood, print, and ceramics shop space for Big Car staff and resident artists in its housing program. Tube Factory is open five days a week with a coffee shop and events like artisan markets that encourage visits by people who might ordinarily participate in the arts. 

In addition to fixing up formerly vacant houses on the block since 2015, Big Car also joined three large backyards adjacent to Tube Factory and the big building being renovated now to create Terri Sisson Park: A Shrine for Motherhood. This restorative place — also made possible with the support of Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation, Efroymson Family Fund, and others — includes living artworks related to nature including Sam Van Aken’s Tree of 40 Fruit and Juan William Chavez’s Indianapolis Bee Sanctuary.

The park, designed by Daniel Liggett of Rundell Ernstberger Associates,  also includes an amphitheater for performances and The Chicken Chapel of Love, a sacred art project led by Marsh to honor the divine feminine and belief systems that center around nature. 

Led by Walker and Marsh, who have lived in the Garfield Park neighborhood for 14 years, Big Car has made a deep investment in the near southside since starting work there in 2011. This work includes co-leading a major quality-of-life planning process and offering Tube Factory for gatherings like Garfield Park and Bean Creek neighborhood meetings. Tube Factory is located within both official boundaries.  

Throughout its 20-year history, Big Car was often a mobile organization — temporarily filling vacant spaces. The organization learned the importance of owning spaces from taking on projects in buildings Big Car didn’t control — a former tire shop outside then half-empty Lafayette Square Mall and a popular art gallery and music venue in Fountain Square — only to later have to leave those spaces. 

A group of artists and neighbors started Big Car in Fountain Square on the near southside of Indianapolis in 2004 as an all-volunteer organization. Still artist run, Big Car now employs 12 people and has operated with an annual budget of about $1 million for the last several years. 

By the numbers

  • $13 million in planned investment for expansion
  • $7.3 million invested so far on the Tube Factory block
  • Year Big Car started working on the near southside: 2004
  • Year Big Car began its focus on Garfield Park: 2011
  • Year Big Car started working on the Tube Factory block: 2015
  • Acres owned: 6
  • Number of affordable artist homes on the Tube Factory block: 18
  • Artists and family members in the affordable homes: 25 

03 Feb 2018
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The Artist as Problem Solver Workshop

The Artist as Problem Solver Workshop

February 3, 2018 | 0 Comments | , , , , ,

The Artist as Problem Solver:
Understanding the Role of Artists and Arts Organizations in
Community Building, Placekeeping, and Cultural Sustainability
Presented by The Joyce Foundation and Big Car Collaborative

Thursday and Friday, March 1-2, 2018
Big Car/Tube Factory artspace
1125 Cruft St.
Indianapolis, IN 46203

 
As part of its ongoing effort to support the capacity of artists and arts organizations to create artworks and cultural participation opportunities that transform their communities, The Joyce Foundation (based in Chicago and supporting artists cities in the Great Lakes Region — including Indianapolis — through the Joyce Awards), is partnering with Indianapolis-based placemaking and socially engaged arts nonprofit, Big Car Collaborative to host an engaging and immersive, two-day convening beginning with an evening keynote and panel on March 1 at 5 p.m, and ending on March 2 at 5 p.m., after a full day of sessions.
 
This event (which is open to everyone but limited by space so please RSVP soon — links below) is for individual artists, leaders from arts and community organizations, city and neighborhood leaders who collaborate with artists, community organizers, entrepreneurs, urban planners and placemakers, funders, researchers, and others interested in the role of the arts in fostering community vitality in general in Indianapolis and the Great Lakes Region.
 
The aim of this interactive convening is to deepen and widen the conversation around placemaking to include the critical work of community building and placekeeping in established, economically vulnerable, or demographically fluctuating communities. Centered around first-hand case studies and tool-sharing, the goal of these two days is to provide opportunities for learning and network building that may lead to future collaborations and exchanges.In addition to nationally and regionally recognized speakers and panelists, everyone who attends will be asked to share their areas of expertise, current initiatives, and needs for additional assistance. Time will be allotted to organize around synergies, themes and resource needs.
 
Please register as soon as possible via the links below to hold your spot. Again, seats will be limited to ensure an inclusive and interactive convening. The final agenda will be disseminated to all registrants.
 
Registration details:Please register via the links below by February 16 to help us with planning.

Click here to RSVP for opening keynote panel and reception on March 1
Click here to RSVP for full-day convening featuring panels and workshops on March 2
Please remember to RSVP and register for each day separately

 
Schedule (full agenda coming soon)
Thursday, March 1, 5-7:30 p.m. (opening keynote panel & reception — followed by optional coordinated small-group dinners)
Friday, March 2, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. (full day of panels and workshops)

25 May 2017
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Shop Safety and Orientation II

Shop Safety and Orientation II

May 25, 2017 | 0 Comments | , , , , , , , , , , ,

Shop Safety and Orientation II is the second installment that will cover basic and safe use of the jointer, planer, and table saw.

This 2-hour class will act as a refresher or as an orientation to our specific equipment models. Limited hands-on practice will accompany the demonstrations.

A few things to note:

*Pre-requisites: Shop Safety and Orientation I.

*If you are new to the table saw, jointer, and planer, please take Woodworking I which will cover these machines more in depth and include more hands-on practice.

*Open to ages 16+. For those 16-18, plan to have a parent/guardian on-site for waiver signatures.

*Class size is limited, so register early.

*$75

For further information and inquiries, please contact Brent at email hidden; JavaScript is required.

22 Feb 2017
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Woodworking 1-Dimensioning Lumber

Woodworking 1-Dimensioning Lumber

February 22, 2017 | Comments Closed | , , , , , , , ,

Woodworking I is an introduction to dimensioning wood- how to take rough sawn lumber and turn them into usable boards.

This 3-hour class will include demonstrations and discussion on wood selection, local suppliers, as well as limited hands-on practice with sample material at the end of class.

A few things to note:

*Pre-requisites: Shop Safety and Orientation I.
*Woodworking I covers these machines more in depth and includes more hands-on practice than Shop Safety and Orientation II. If you are totally new to the table saw, planer, and jointer, this class is for you.

*Open to ages 16+. For those 16-18, plan to have a parent/guardian on-site for waiver signatures.

*$75

For more information or inquiries, please contact Brent at email hidden; JavaScript is required or Brittany at email hidden; JavaScript is required

16 Mar 2016
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Flannelly’s of the Future Festival

March 16, 2016 | 0 Comments | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

To celebrate their marriage and the role music played in bringing them together, artists Brelyn Gerard and John Flannelly organized an experimental music festival. Flannellys of the Future Festival will take place April 30, 4-10 p.m. at Tube Factory artpace, 1125 Cruft St. Several musical acts were part the formation of their relationship so the pair wanted to share the music with Indianapolis by means of a free concert. The bands that will be featured are: Bad Psychic (Bloomington), DJ Littletown, Duncan Kissinger, Exploding Head Scene (Philadelphia, PA), Glitter Brains (Bloomington), Oreo Jones & Sirius Blvck, Jeron Braxton & the Tamagotchis (Bloomington), Rev//Rev (Lafayette), Rob Funkhouser, Sedcairn Archives, Skything (Marlboro, Vermont), Teen Brigade (Lafayette).

“Both of us are the kind of people who strive to view life from as many angles as possible, to feel from all those angles even if it means crawling around the floor of the house to feel the space usually reserved for our knees and ankles, or chilling in the bathroom for a shift in perspective,” says Gerard.

Many of the musicians in the festival were part of Gerard and Flannelly falling in love. Flannelly’s music was the first time experimental music clicked for Gerard. “Sitting in our friend’s living room, watching John deliver the experience of his art, I had an ethereal space to sort through my feelings. It was a space that somehow managed to be safe and challenging at the same time,” says Gerard. “After his set at Free House, he threw the flower he’d been wearing on his vest to the audience. I seized it. To this day, that flower still graces my bookshelf.”

Soon after that, on Valentine’s Day 2015, Gerard and Flannelly enjoyed their first date — at the Fountain Square music venue Grove Haus. Gerard sang back up for the band Memory Foam. She found out that Flannely had toured with one of her favorite bands, Shame Thugs, and that he was in the music video for her favorite Sirius Blvck songs. Eventually, Flannelly moved from Bloomington to Indianapolis into Gerard’s friend’s house. After a recommendation from their mutual friend, artist Erin K. Drew, Flannely got a job at the same place where Gerard worked.

“Now, we’re getting married and we’re doing it our way. With all the art projects in the community we’re involved with, neither of us are interested in fussing over centerpieces and flowers. We want to celebrate our love by sharing the music we love, made by the people we love,” says Gerard. “We can’t wait to groove with Indianapolis at the Flannellys of the Future Festival!”

Gerard has a new book, iForgot, out and Flanney a new album, Peace and Quiet now available. For their honeymoon after the festival celebration, the two will travel the country to promote their works.

16 Mar 2016
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Julianna Barwick and Mas Ysa

March 16, 2016 | 0 Comments | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
barwickjulianna_largeMay 6th sees the release of Will, the revelatory third full-length album by Brooklyn experimental artist Julianna Barwick. Conceived and self-produced over the past year in a variety of locations, the ominous, compelling Will is a departure from 2013’s Alex Somers-produced Nepenthe. If that last record conjured images of gentle, thick fog rolling over desolate mountains, then Will is a late afternoon thunderstorm, a cathartic collision of sharp and soft textures that sounds looming and restorative all at once.

Barwick’s life over the past several years has largely been lived in transit, and as such the genesis of Will was not beholden to location; Barwick worked on the album in a variety of locales, from a desolate house in upstate New York to the Moog Factory in Asheville, North Carolina to Lisbon, Portugal. 

“I love touring, but it can be a wild ride,” Barwick reflects on this cycle of constant motion. “You’re constantly adjusting, assimilating, and finding yourself in life-changing situations.” Those experiences played into and helped shape Will’s charged, unstable atmosphere: “I knew I’d be playing these songs live, so I wanted some movement,” she explains. “Something that had rhythm and low-end.”

That sense of forward propulsion is largely owed to Will’s synth-heavy textures. The electric current that runs through the album takes on various shapes of intoxicating instability. Featuring contributions from Thomas Arsenault (Mas Ysa), Dutch cellist Maarten Vos and percussionist, Jamie Ingalls (Chairlift, Tanlines, Beverly), Will is largely a product of ups and downs, a reflection of a life lived somewhere in between transience and standing still. “While making this record, there were moments of isolation and dark currents,” Barwick admits. “I like exploring that, and I love when I come across songs that sound scary or ominous. I’ve always been curious about what goes into making a song that way.” The beguiling, beautifully complicated Will is the result of that curiosity, and proof of Barwick’s irresistibly engaging talent as a composer and vocalist.

Will comes off of Barwick’s busiest period in her career, following the release of Nepenthe—a spate of activity that included playing piano for Yoko Ono, performing at Carnegie Hall at the annual Tibet House concert with the Flaming Lips and Philip Glass, The Rosabi EP and beer created in conjunction with brewing company Dogfish Head, and a re-imagining of Bach’s “Adagio” from Concerto In D Minor.

Watch the Derrick Belcham-directed video for debut single, “Nebula” which was filmed in the Philip Johnson Glass House and presents the essence of Will and Julianna Barwick’s richly complex musical fabric.

Julianna Barwick’s music has been reviewed in Time Out New York, Time Out Lisbon, The New York Times, and The Village Voice, among other publications. Her music has also been featured as “Best New Music” on Pitchfork, which also gave, 2009’s “Florine” EP an honorable mention for an album of the year. 

Mas Ysa

“Thomas Arsenault, the person who records as Mas Ysa, is difficult to pin down, and that’s probably the best thing about him. He’s lived in Montreal and San Francisco and Sao Paolo and New York and wherever Oberlin is. He’s scored modern dance productions and remixed synthpop groups. He sometimes sings in an angelic, reverby tenor and sometimes in a full, throat-wracked howl. He makes mostly electronic records, and he does it by itself, but “producer” somehow doesn’t seem like the right job title for him. (I’ve also seen people describe him as a “composer,” and that seems even more wrong.) Listening to his records, it’s hard to tell which sounds are electronic and which are made by actual physical instruments. His music drifts freely between ambient and synthpop and oblique dance and good old-fashioned indie rock. And he’s conclusively proven that you don’t need a full band to sound vaguely like Arcade Fire.

Mas Ysa made his name on last year’s Worth EP, which alternated between drifting, pretty synth-drone and big, chest-thumping psychedelic laptop-rock howlers. On Seraph, his first proper album, Arsenault pretty much smushes those two things together until they’re one thing, and the result is a pleasant drift that never settles on one genre for more than a few seconds and stays appealing and interesting throughout. All the individual sounds, like the glassy walls of keyboard on “Sick” or the happy-sigh New Order beeps of “Look Up,” have an impressive widescreen gloss to them. Arsenault’s voice has that quavery tone that was so popular among mid-’00s indie-dude singers, in which every word means so much that he just can’t choke it out without his throat catching. Some tracks play around with Euro-club house-thumps, which sounds shockingly good with this sort of singing and this sort of production. Nicole Miglis from Hundred Waters shows up on “Gun,” and her airy coo works as an absolutely lovely complement to Arsenault’s emotive gurgle. “Service” has some seriously badass Moroder-style Italo pulsing. There’s a lot to like here.

And maybe, for you, there will be a lot to love. Arsenault’s closest peer might be Youth Lagoon’s Trevor Powers, another indie auteur who pulls inspiration from wherever and whose songs seem to project meaning, even if you don’t necessarily know what that meaning is. Youth Lagoon has never really gotten past the “pleasant background music” stage for me, but that dude’s music means a lot to a lot of people. I suspect that the same will be true here. And even if you don’t end up loving this thing, it’s still an impressive piece of work, one that you should hear — if you can carve out the time. After all, there is a truly unprecedented amount of great music out there. If something is merely good, you can be forgiven for skipping it.”–Tom Breihan of Sterogum

This concert is made possible by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. About The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts: The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts was established in 1987. In accordance with Andy Warhol’s will, its mission is the advancement of the visual arts. The Foundation’s objective is to foster innovative artistic expression and the creative process by encouraging and supporting cultural organizations that in turn, directly or indirectly, support artists and their work. The Foundation values the contribution these organizations make to artists and audiences and to society as a whole by supporting, exhibiting and interpreting a broad spectrum of contemporary artistic practice.

16 Mar 2016
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Prince Rama

March 16, 2016 | 0 Comments | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Prince Rama is the musical duo of sisters Taraka and Nimai Larson. They have lived in ashrams, worked for utopian architects, written manifestos, delivered lectures from pools of fake blood, conducted group exorcisms disguised as VHS workouts, installed art installations at The Whitney, Art Basel and various galleries across the U.S. And now they return to Big Car April 9, 8 p.m. at the Tube Factory artspace, 1125 Cruft St. in the Garfield Park neighborhood on the south end of downtown.

They will perform Xtreme Now, an album about extreme sports with Indianapolis-based The Icks opening for them. The cost of the performance is $10 and tickets can be purchased on-line (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/prince-rama-indianapolis-us-tour-the-icks-tickets-21012549100) or at the door.

Xtreme Now is the most extreme album Prince Rama has ever made. Writing for Xtreme Now began while the Larson sisters were living on a black metal utopian commune on Vȫrmsi, a remote island off the coast of Estonia during the summer of 2012. There, Taraka had a near death experience inside an ancient Viking ruin, which sparked a recurring sense of time-schizophrenia, or the physical sensation of existing in multiple time periods simultaneously.

In this case, she experienced a joint-existence in both the medieval ages and the year 2067. In one of her prophetic visions she describes, “In the year 2067, I witnessed an aesthetic landscape where art museums are sponsored by energy drink beverages and beauty is determined by speed. I saw a vision of ancient tapestries stretched across half-pipes and people base-jumping off planes with the Mona Lisa smiling up from their parachutes. I saw art merge with extreme sports to form a new aesthetic language of ‘Speed Art.’ I realized that time travel was possible via the gateway of extreme sports, and I wanted to make music that would provide the score.”

Perceiving a great void in the world of extreme sports for music that could match the metaphysical intensity of these death-defying feats, Prince Rama set forth to make Xtreme Now, the first real foray by any musician to create a new “extreme sports genre.” For inspiration, the sisters looked to their own flirtations with death and time-dilation, along with countless hours of obsessively watching extreme sports videos and consuming dangerous quantities of Monster Energy drink.

Working with acclaimed dance producer Alex Epton of XXXChange (Gang Gang Dance, Björk, Spank Rock, Panda Bear, The Kills), the new songs take on a more powerful, confident, fierce, infectious, all-encompassing, and accessible dance-club feeling than any other Prince Rama record – a fearless, visionary pop tour de force for the ghost-modern era that celebrates the ephemerality of life, dancing just at the edge of death’s gilded smile.

About The Icks

The Icks utilize electricity to power their instruments. What if John Hughes directed Blade Runner?

John Caldwell-guitar and vocals

Cameron Holloway-farfisa

Joe Ferguson-bass

Amanda Case-vocals

$10

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/prince-rama-indianapolis-us-tour-the-icks-tickets-21012549100

This concert is made possible by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. About The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts: The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts was established in 1987. In accordance with Andy Warhol’s will, its mission is the advancement of the visual arts. The Foundation’s objective is to foster innovative artistic expression and the creative process by encouraging and supporting cultural organizations that in turn, directly or indirectly, support artists and their work. The Foundation values the contribution these organizations make to artists and audiences and to society as a whole by supporting, exhibiting and interpreting a broad spectrum of contemporary artistic practice.

18 Feb 2016
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2016: Wow! look at what’s next

2016: Wow! look at what’s next

February 18, 2016 | 0 Comments | , , ,

At Big Car, our art projects and programs include and serve people of all ages and backgrounds. We bring art to people with the purpose of sparking creativity and, building on that, helping improve quality of life. We strive, first and foremost, to connect and collaborate with people. Everybody deserves access to culture, creativity, and opportunities to spend time together in great public spaces and places.

Who are “we”? Twelve talented and creative staff members (eight full-time, four part-time), a dedicated and active board of directors, and a loose collective of additional artists and community leaders who contribute in a variety of ways to projects and programs. In 2016, this group is teaming up with many partners — with the support of an incredible group of generous local and national donors — to bring the following artist-led, community-based cultural experiences in Indianapolis:

Neighborhood Initiatives: Our place-based initiatives enliven places, leverage collective impact, and engage people with their neighbors, long term. Our next big project will focus our creative placemaking efforts in the heart of the Garfield Park neighborhood when we open our new, permanent exhibition area, workshop, and community space, Tube Factory. A critical expansion of our work in this neighborhood will be the creation of a community of affordable homes for artists (in partnership with Riley Area Development) near The Tube. Also in 2016, our Listen Hear sound art space and retail incubator will feature art exhibits and events and serve as home to our low-power FM community- and art-focused radio station. And our mobile outreach with the Wagon of Wonders will continue on the Far Eastside in collaboration with the Indianapolis Public Library’s Bookmobile and in a new area, the Near Westside, as part of the Local Initiative Support Corporation’s comprehensive creative placemaking effort, Great Places 2020. And we’ll be working on additional exciting creative placemaking projects with Near West and LISC in the spring and summer.

Creative Placemaking: Our design and facilitation of experiences, spaces and materials enables partners, neighbors, and other members of the public to identify and maximize their assets, tell a compelling story, build identity, and connect with each other. Building with Big Car — In summer 2015, 12 teens from the TeenWorks program — a summer employment and college readiness program serving low-income youth ages 15-18 in Marion County — were mentored by Big Car teaching artists. Teens experienced creative placemaking firsthand by working together to create furniture and sculptures made from invasive honeysuckle harvested from Bean Creek, an overgrown waterway in Garfield Park. They learned how to design, build, and paint the sculptures, many of which were used in the landscape design at Spark Monument Circle. In 2016, we’ll be working with TeenWorks to pilot our youth-oriented public programs at our new Tube Factory artspace workshop and in public places in the city. We continue to work as creative placemakers with Reconnecting to Our Waterways, a series of projects and programs that activate neighborhood areas near our city’s streams and rivers. And we’re excited to team up with artist Mary Miss and a variety of partners in support of the Streamlines art and science project also near our city’s waterways.

Citywide Collective Projects: Our citywide initiatives on livability foster a culture of innovation and generate creative energy in Indianapolis. Spark Monument Circle: With funding from a NEA Our Town grant in partnership with the City of Indianapolis, Big Car led an 11-week creative placemaking project in the city’s main public plaza, Monument Circle, invigorating the space with people-centric infrastructure and daily artistic and community programming reaching 45,000 visitors. The project featured 300-plus varied small events and happenings including weekly artist-led walks, musical performances, and opportunities to get creative. Check out all the numbers presented in a fun and graphical way here. In 2016, we plan to produce Spark again in partnership with the City of Indianapolis (details coming soon). Also, we’re excited to team up, this year, with Riley Area Development to commission a mural in a prominent place honoring Indianapolis poet Mari Evans who turns 97 this year. And, working with a variety of partners, we’ll again help bring TEDxIndianapolis back for its fifth year.

Please check out our year-end report and video if you missed all of the details on our 2015 accomplishments. It was a great year!

Now, we hope you can get involved with all that’s happening this year! Contact us at email hidden; JavaScript is required if you’d like to participate as an artist or volunteer. You can also help us bring art to more people by making a much-appreciated donation. And always just feel free to show up and enjoy yourself.

31 Dec 2015
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Big Smiles: 2015 Year in Review

Big Smiles: 2015 Year in Review

December 31, 2015 | 0 Comments | , , , , ,

While this year was one filled with some big transitions — including moving our home base to the Garfield Park neighborhood — we accomplished much as the city’s only full-time socially engaged art and placemaking organization. In 2015, we reached more than 30,000 people, provided part- and full-time work to more than 50 artists, sparked major investment in a long-overlooked area of the city, and helped bring vibrancy to several underutilized public places near our waterways and in the heart of Downtown.

But the most important outcome of our work was helping so many people feel happy while getting creative. We’re glad our projects brought smiles to people’s faces. We’re glad the free opportunities to celebrate and participate in art and play helped folks feel closer to each other. And we’re glad our events helped us all better appreciate this place we call home.

These important accomplishments — and the list below — were all made possible thanks to our donors and partners, board and staff, volunteers and neighbors, and artists and performers who brought their incredible ideas and energy into the mix. If you’d like to get involved, email us at email hidden; JavaScript is required. If you’d like to help by making a donation, it’s easy to do here.

2015 in video:

Here’s a chronological list of Big Car’s highlights from 2015:

At The Show Room and Listen Hear: This pair of pop-up cultural spaces in a mostly vacant retail strip in the Lafayette Square Mall area featured social practice art projects such as an instruction-based interactive show, a gallery in a bathroom, and a slate of sound art programming through May of 2015. Note: the Listen Hear sound art space concept will transfer to our new space in the Garfield Park neighborhood in early 2016.

Placemaking with Reconnecting to Our Waterways: With support via the Kresge Foundation, Big Car hired Alan Goffinski as the ROW Creative Placemaker. Alan and staff conducted placemaking workshops for artists and neighbors, and wide variety of eclectic outdoor public social events (from a flash mob in Broad Ripple, to a Day of the Dead celebration in Fountain Square, to a leaf jump along Fall Creek), drawing 450 people. Read more here.

Building with Big Car: Mentored by teaching artists, a dozen teens from the TeenWorks program experienced art and placemaking firsthand by working together to create furniture and sculptures made from invasive honeysuckle harvested from Bean Creek in the Garfield Park neighborhood, and painting sculptures to be used as part of parklet seating at Spark Monument Circle. See photos here.

Music at the Texaco: This ALL-IN Block Party drew 200 Garfield Park neighbors for live local music of many genres at a vacant former gas station, as a way of leveraging community pride, connections among neighbors, and economic development. A new, full-time commercial use of the old gas station is in the works. ALL-IN is a program of Indiana Humanities.

Garfield Alive Sculptures: Big Car collaborated with Friends of Garfield Park to develop interactive sculptures (shaped like abstracted vintage victrola record players) marking points of interest for an audio tour of the historic 128-acre park.

Wagon of Wonders: Designed collaboratively by Big Car artists on the platform of an ice fishing trailer from Minnesota, this mobile art gallery, pop-up public space, and mobile bait and tackle shop (used for Reconnecting to Our Waterways placemaking programming) features interactive art activities, a tiny library with a fold-out reading desk, and commissioned exhibits by Indianapolis artists Beatriz Vasquez and Casey Roberts. The Wagon reached 6,500 in its first six months.

Spark Monument Circle: With funding from the NEA via the City of Indianapolis, Big Car led an 11-week placemaking project in the city’s main public plaza, invigorating the space with people-centric infrastructure and daily programming reaching 22,000 residents, workers and visitors from around the world — while also testing out the city’s plans for a permanent renovation of the Circle area.

TEDxIndianapolis: Keep It Simple: For the fourth year, Big Car and our partners produced this day long-conference of ideas, at the University of Indianapolis, bringing in Australian placemaking expert David Engwicht to speak, among others. Attended by 500 people, the event included a Big Car-designed, simplicity-themed interactive exhibition at the UIndy art gallery for the entire month of October.

Southside Murals: On Indy Do Day in early October, Big Car engaged with Lilly Global Day of Service volunteers to paint two murals designed by nationally known Indianapolis artist Nat Russell, on two new Big Car buildings in the Garfield Park neighborhood, The Tube Factory artspace and Listen Hear. In November, Big Car teamed up with the Bates-Hendricks Neighborhood Association who commissioned Big Car’s Andy Fry to design and facilitate painting an underpass mural highlighting the neighborhood and its history.

5×5 Idea Competition at Tube Factory: In November, Big Car hosted its round of this arts ideas competition at Tube Factory artspace in the Garfield Park neighborhood — our first event in the building still under renovation. More than 200 people attended, hearing ideas for improving livability through art. A coalition of foundations provided the winning intergenerational team, Arts for Learning, with a $10,000 prize for their community story-gathering idea. We also gave the other presenting teams a $500 stipend.

22 Dec 2015
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You can Help us Share the Joy of Art and Creativity Together!

You can Help us Share the Joy of Art and Creativity Together!

December 22, 2015 | 0 Comments | ,

At Big Car Collaborative, we believe everybody should get to participate in making and enjoying art and vibrant public places. As artists ourselves, we know the thrill that comes from creativity, from spending time with people celebrating art and culture. We don’t want to bottle this up for ourselves. We’re determined to share.

Everyone, of all ages and backgrounds, should enjoy opportunities to get creative together with events and programs that are fun, affordable, and welcoming to all. We love it when this happens spontaneously — with people stumbling upon engaging, hands-on art activities and events in public spaces. Maybe they didn’t consciously set out in search of a creative experience. But when they find us doing something fun along a waterway, in a park, or at Monument Circle, people smile. And they stop and create, play, socialize, relax, and share.

With the support of many partners, generous funders — and individuals like you — we’re working to enhance public life. This is made of non-commercial and spontaneous social activities that happen at public spaces and places. This is what Spark Monument Circle and Service Center were all about. This is the essence of our work taking shape in the Garfield Park neighborhood. And this is what we’re doing every day as Indiana’s only nonprofit organization — and one of a handful around the world — dedicated, full-time, to helping improve life for people through placemaking and socially engaged art.

As 2015 draws to an end, please join us in celebrating our big year and please consider a making a tax-deductible donation to help us bring art to even more people in 2016. Thank you!

Also, please check out our 2015 year-in-review video.

Big Car's 2015 Year in Review from Big Car on Vimeo.